Chevalier
by Kitty XIII
Summary: The Chevalier walk among us.  Bending elements and minds, they reform the world as they see fit.  Cloud's your average, bored-to-death high-schooler…so why are all these downright scary people suddenly chasing after him? CloTi; AU
1. Chapter I

So here's the debut for a new fanfic plot egg that I thought up. It's not entirely novel, but it's a comfortable, well-worn idea that suits many people well, and I think I put a sufficient number of twists to keep even you, oh beloved reader, guessing ;)

Thanks to all of you! You make my world go round! :D

Enjoy!

* * *

_Boston, Massachusetts_

"Hey, Teef, over here!"

A few swift, precise kicks and the soccer ball flew over to Tessa's waiting cleat. Picking up the pass perfectly, Tessa weaved skillfully back and forth between defenders before finally facing the goalie. She bit her lip, flickered her gaze left and right. Sensing indecision, the goalie rushed her, leaping with arms outstretched.

Tessa's anxious expression abruptly dissolved into a sweet smile as she lightly tapped the ball to the left…straight to Tifa. As the goalie yelped hopelessly, still flying away from the goal, Tifa stepped in neatly to take the shot.

Point blank. Golden goal.

"Haha!" Tifa punched a triumphant fist in the air. "Yes, yes, yessss!"

Sweaty, exhausted, and utterly exhilarated, Tifa's team swarmed her, roaring their approval in voices made hoarse by fatigue and the thirty-some minutes of overtime. Their opponents lay practically comatose on the turf, less disappointed in their loss than relieved at the arrival of their long-awaited rest.

"Semifinals, here we come!" Tessa squealed, hugging Tifa tightly and squeezing out what little oxygen remained in her lungs.

Tifa chuckled breathlessly and wrapped Tessa in her own bear hug. "This means you owe me twenty bucks, you know."

"Oh, small price to pay for this glory!" Tessa sighed theatrically. "For the first time, I am glad you won a bet!"

Tifa grinned before looking around, scanning the crowds through the thicket of her joyous teammates. "Hey, where's our cripple the Captain? Didn't she say she'd be here today, 'broken foot or no broken foot'?"

"Oh yeah…we saw her at halftime though, so she must still be here somewhere," Tessa commented, rubbernecking around. "She's a stubborn one, and I can't imagine her just letting someone whisk her back to the hospital before the end of the match."

Tifa spotted the familiar black braid of their team captain. "Over there!" Tifa yelled, leading the team towards her.

"Iiiiiiisabellllle!" Tessa cheered, rocketing towards their captain with a spurt of her characteristic 'monster speed.'

Isabelle had barely turned around before Tessa tackled her to the ground, cast-clad leg and all.

"Hey, hey, watch the ankle!" Isabelle smiled, propping herself up on one elbow. "I might still be your tough-as-nails captain, but I do need breathing room, silly!"

"And here I always thought you were a cyborg or something," Tifa quipped as she arrived, still smiling widely. "Welcome back, Izzy."

Isabelle's smile faltered. "Hey, Teef."

Tifa didn't miss a beat. "Izzy?" she questioned curiously.

Isabelle stared up at her, suddenly lost for words. "Umm…Tifa…"

"Yes?"

"Ms. Tifa Lockhart?"

Tifa whirled, surprised by the unfamiliar voice.

A tall, middle-aged man in a suit stood before her. He seemed peculiarly two-dimensional with his generic brown eyes, generic brown hair, and generic gray, three-piece suit. _He looks like a government grunt straight out of The Bourne Identity_, Tifa thought to herself.

"Yes, that's me?"

"Ms. Lockhart, I deeply regret having to inform you that Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart have been declared deceased in your home today."

…_What?_

"I'm sorry, who are you again?" Tifa asked, keeping a tight smile on her face. _What a lunatic! Who let this guy onto school grounds?_

The lunatic pulled out a badge and an I.D. "I am Agent Trotsky from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Ms. Lockheart."

Tifa hid her confusion behind a blank stare._ FBI? What? Dad works at the FBI, but—_

The pieces fell into place, and Tifa's heart stopped. _No. No, no, no._ Tifa's mind raced back to that morning. _ I ate breakfast, said goodbye to Mom and Dad, left for the soccer game…no, that can't be right!_

"I think you might have the wrong person," Tifa said weakly. "I saw my parents less than three hours ago. They…can't be dead. It's not possible."

The agent seemed to sigh. Some impression of sadness flitted through those impassive, plain brown eyes. "The residence located at 501 Maple Leaf Street in Lamar County detonated today at approximately 9:30 AM, most probably due to a hidden incendiary time bomb placed somewhere in the laundry room. Our bomb squads are currently examining the remains of the house to determine more specific details. Ms. Lockhart, do you reside at 501 Maple Leaf Street?"

Tifa said nothing. She stood there, stunned and silent because she _did_ reside at 501 Maple Leaf Street in Lamar County and because she'd had toast and scrambled eggs with her parents, kissed them goodbye, and driven down to the soccer field at no earlier than 9:10 AM—and somehow, someway, in the twenty minutes it took her to drive to the tournament, both of her loving parents had quite literally been wiped off of the face of the planet.

_And here I was playing soccer for almost two hours after my parents died,_ Tifa realized numbly.

Tifa stammered—something she hadn't done since she was three. "I…I don't…"

"Ms. Lockhart," said the agent more gently, "I am sorry for your loss, but as we are not positively certain of the circumstances of the murder or the specific target, you are still in considerable danger. The FBI is offering you protection for the time being until your relatives can be contacted and…" His voice faded out in an indistinct screen of white noise as Tifa replayed his words in her head.

_Murder. Murder. Murder._

And, in the chaotic turn of events, somewhere in Tifa's head, something changed. Foreign chemicals flooded her system, previously dormant neurons started firing crazily, and Tifa stayed stock-still as her mind shattered from loss and something new came together from all the broken pieces.

"…_Ms. Lockhart?"_ The FBI agent examined her cautiously, his face a mass of blurry pixels, his voice fuzzy and far away. _"Ms. Lockhart, are you alright?"_

A hand descended on her shoulder. Tifa barely acknowledged it. She'd almost forgotten that the rest of her team was there. Tessa's tearful voice filtered through the buzzing in her ears. _"Teef…Teef, I am so sorry…I…"_

Tifa whispered. "…Stop."

And the world suddenly stood still. But Tifa didn't notice the pigeons were suspended in midair, plump pears hanging in the sky, or the trees paused in their waltz with their wind, their limber forms still bent in graceful, arched bows. Tifa didn't notice the leaves shimmering through the air, each tumbling fringe caught in the glare of the sun, or the sympathetic eyes and faces frozen in expressions varying from pure shock to welling grief. Tifa didn't see the beautiful world quiet and calm around her because in her world nothing could possibly be right again.

"Mom…Dad…"

And only then, surrounded by silence, did Tifa finally break down and start to cry.

…

_Washington, D.C._

"Zack Fair…" The rather unpleasant, smirking man drew out the last name before snapping the file shut and turning his gaze at the boy sitting in the chair before him. "You are _quite_ the troublemaker."

Zack sighed. He was sitting in a windowless metal box of a room that was about as artfully crafted as a marshmallow gun. Concrete walls of solid gray stared down at two steel chairs – one of which he was occupying now – and a single metal table riveted into the floor. There was one barred-off air duct near the ceiling, a thick metal door, a slab of one-way mirror fixed in the wall, and yet another pompous, black-suited interrogator.

"Oh good, you can read," Zack yawned, stretching as best as he could with handcuffs encircling his wrists.

The interrogator kept smiling snidely. "Make all the wisecracks you want, boy. We have you now. There's no miraculous escape for you this time, not in this room."

_I beg to differ_, Zack thought, suppressing a smile of his own. He could see a dozen ways out just by glancing around – he was just participating in their little façade to keep the Feds happy while he plotted his real grand scheme.

"What I don't understand, though, Mr. Fair, is how you're able to be so cavalier under such serious circumstances," the interrogator continued, setting the file down on the table and sitting on the other chair. "I believe that you are aware that you are being held under suspicion for the theft of multiple, highly-regarded, and _extremely_ secure paintings across the globe?"

Zack put on his best poker face and widened his eyes. "Who, me?" he asked, pointing a finger at his innocent expression.

The interrogator showed the first signs of impatience. "Yes, you. You have been stealing priceless artworks from public museums and private collections for the past five years under the pseudonym of 'the SOLDIER'. You have also managed to get away with all of them – excepting that last failed heist, of course," the man said, adding the last phrase as a taunt.

Zack was smart enough to see bait when he saw it. "The SOLDIER?" He frowned. "Sounds more like a government nutcase than an art thief. Are you sure his name was _that_?"

The interrogator simply watched Zack, his eyes scrutinizing. Zack stifled another yawn.

"Oooooookay," Zack finally said, breaking the silence. "So you're saying that I'm some sort of internationally wanted white-collar criminal capable of stealing really expensive paintings that are protected by really expensive security systems?" Zack raised an eyebrow skeptically at the other man. "If I had any more money than the twenty-dollar bill in my pocket, I'd use it to buy some new clothes. I'm pretty sure that I've been sitting in this outfit for the past two days or something."

"Thirty-five hours and fifty-six minutes," the interrogator corrected. "And yes, that is precisely what I have been insinuating."

_Around thirty-six hours,_ Zack thought to himself carefully. _Okay, so that means that the trigger should be coming soon._

The interrogator seemed to be realizing the futility of his current approach. He switched demeanors with an almost bi-polar swiftness, his voice growing gentler. "What we're trying to say, Mr. Fair, is that we need the paintings back. They are all great testaments to humanity's glory as a whole, and the entire world deserves to see them, don't you think?"

_T-minus two minutes and a half._ "Not particularly," Zack replied absentmindedly, his eyes wandering the room. _Seriously, whoever designed this place could probably suck the life out of the Last Supper._

"But surely you can see that the pieces that you've stolen symbolize the genius of the human race?" the interrogator almost pleaded. He fixed his gaze on Zack. "We need them back, Mr. Fair. _All_ of us need them."

Zack stared at the interrogator in surprise. "Umm. Hold up. Did you just say, 'the genius of the human race'?"

Taken aback by the random statement, the other man frowned. "Yes, but that's not the point."

Zack blinked…and then burst out laughing.

"Oh…wow…" Zack choked out between fits of laughter. "There's the worst joke I've ever heard." He smiled at his interrogator. "Genius? The human race? Those two are practically opposites to begin with. Putting them in a sentence next to each other creates a pretty epic oxymoron."

"…I'm sorry? I don't follow," the interrogator finally said, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Of course you don't," Zack sighed, as if he'd been anticipating the answer. He reached up and tapped the side of his head. "Gotta think outside the box, you know?"

The interrogator kept looking at him. "I'm sorry, I don't think that we're being very clear with each other. The point of this discussion is—"

_BOOM!_

The concrete enclosure shook ominously, leaking spirals of dust from unseen cracks in the ceiling. Through the soundproofed walls, they could both hear the wail of some alarm picking up, its pitch and volume increasing exponentially. The interrogator's head snapped up to stare at whatever disturbance was happening above – and then snapped back to glare accusingly at Zack.

Zack yawned again and rolled his shoulders.

"Is this you?" the interrogator snarled, pointing at the ceiling, all traces of the friendly façade utterly evaporated.

"How could it be me?" Zack reasoned, smiling politely and holding up his cuffed wrists by means of explanation. He pointed at the interrogator with both hands and winked. "I have all attention focused on you, after all."

Another thud and a muffled explosion shuddered throughout the complex. The interrogator spat a curse and stormed out of the room, his hand pressed against his ear as he jabbered into an invisible mouthpiece.

"Angry little fellow," Zack commented idly, shaking his head in dismay. "Oh well. I guess I'd be kind of stressed too, in his position." He stood up. "I guess I should get ready, too."

Zack waited patiently for exactly ten seconds before taking three steps back from the steel table and closing his eyes.

The ceiling suddenly exploded, sending chips of cement, steel, and mortar flying. Zack felt a sudden wave of heat blast his face and opened his eyes with an irritated scowl on his face as he looked up at the ceiling.

"You're late, Reno," Zack grumped, sending a little shock of electricity through the handcuffs. In every atom of the cuffs, the metal ions suddenly polarized and contracted at the jolt of electricity. Without the contiguous puddles of electrons to lend malleability and strength, the cuffs turned stiff and brittle, and Zack's light pull utterly pulverized them.

"Hey, you rush a miracle worker and you get lousy miracles," grinned Zack's savior, his long red hair stubbornly ruffled despite the ponytail holding it back. His green eyes glowed like a cat's as he dropped down through the melted hole in the ceiling and onto the remains of the crushed steel table.

"Wo-w," Reno whistled, drawing out the word. "I can see they put a whole lot of effort into the décor here." He shook his head. "And now here I've gone and put a gigantic hole in the roof. What a shame."

"Well, you know what they say – change is good for you, right?" Zack grinned, hopping up onto the ruins of the table next to Reno. "Did you get the stuff?"

Reno rolled his eyes. "Was that even a question?" he retorted, reaching into the folds of his rumpled blue suit and pulling out a medium-sized box. "Here you are, my dear partner in crime. The Hope Diamond from the Smithsonian Museum itself. Happy now?"

Zack didn't bother opening the case. He tucked into a pocket of his black cargo pants and smiled at Reno. "Don't worry, I had full confidence in you. So where's the shrimp?"

"Hey! I take offense to being called derogatory terms!" yelped a little voice from above. A petite girl with short, dark hair in short, dark clothing peered over the flames still lining the edges of the hole in the ceiling.

"Sorry, Yuff. We'll be up in a second," Zack repented with another grin. He turned to Reno. "Ladies first."

"Not…so fast," came a breathless voice from behind Zack and Reno. Both boys turned. The FBI interrogator was standing in the doorway, holding a gun on them. "Stay where…you are."

"Oh, great!" Yuffie ranted from above, clearly visible hopping up and down in frustration on the level above. "Nicely done, Reno! I thought you said that you'd distract everyone while we made our great escape, you moron!"

"You're kind of out of shape for a Fed," Reno noted sympathetically, tucking his hands in his pockets. "Out of breath from a little run like that? Geez. Shrimpy up there could probably beat you with her twig legs."

"What was that?" Yuffie roared menacingly. "I dare you to say it to my face when you get up here! I _dare_ you!"

"Keep your shirt on, we're coming," Reno yawned. He jerked his head at Zack. "You wanna take care of this one?"

Zack sighed. "Of course. I'm always running around putting out your fires. No pun intended."

Reno grinned and climbed to the top of the rubble.

"Don't move!" the agent yelled again. "I won't repeat myself!"

"Huh. And yet you have no problem with spewing the same crap at _me_ for a day and a half straight," Zack grumbled. He felt the energy crackling through the steel under his feet, gathering obediently at his beck and call.

"Stop right there—"

Zack unleashed a very light wave of electricity at the federal agent. First it zapped the electrons in the metal of the gun and bullets, rendering the firearm utterly useless. Then the wave moved on, hitting the man, standing all of his hair on end, paralyzing his limbs, momentarily overloading every nerve in his body, and throwing him back a good ten feet through the door. The door itself slammed shut with surprising force, magnetically attracted to its own frame.

"Oops," Zack sighed. "I miscalculated again."

Reno raised his hand palm-up to his lips and blew a couple of white-hot sparks at the door, welding it shut to the frame. "That should hold off any more of them for while." He clambered nimbly up to Yuffie's level and looked down at Zack. "You coming?"

"Yeah." Zack turned back to his friends and took Reno's hand. Once they were on the same level, Yuffie stared stonily at both of them.

Reno and Zack sighed. "Alright, we're sorry about the short comments."

Yuffie continued muttering darkly under her breath as she took hold of their sleeves. "Ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Reno volunteered cheerily.

Yuffie concentrated for a moment…and then took off running at an inhuman speed, turning the world into a blur of streaked colors.

Someone walking outside on the sidewalk that night could almost hear a triumphant laugh ringing through the empty air, the only evidence that the Triad had visited – and struck – once again.

…

_Los Angeles, California_

"Dr. Gainsborough!"

The nurse came fluttering down the hall, repeating the name urgently as she slipped past throngs of doctors. "Dr. Gainsborough!" As she spotted the familiar pink ribbon and gently wavy brown hair, her voice sounded infinitely more relieved. "Aerith! We have a patient coding in O.R. 6 – we were going through with a multiple bypass, and somehow, I don't – the surgeon – he doesn't know – we're sorry, we just –"

The doctor turned…and smiled. "Casey. There's nothing to be sorry about." She placed a comforting hand on the nurse's shoulder. "Lead the way."

The nurse gave her a quick, nervous smile and hurried towards the operating room with the surgeon nicknamed "The Miracleworker" in tow.

The moment her shoe slapped the tiles of the operating room floor, Aerith was immersed in a flood of pure, professional-grade panic. The EKG beeped wildly, warning the surgeons of the all-too-evident demise of the patient on the table. The head surgeon was moving fast, sealing each hemorrhaging artery or vein with swift, precise movements of the hemostasis, but more blood pooled with every passing second, filling up the chest cavity and concealing their sources.

"Dr. Gainsborough is here," gasped the nurse, yanking on a new pair of latex gloves and pulling her mask back up.

Aerith followed suit, donning a sterile blue apron, fitting a mask over her nose and mouth, lowering glasses over her eyes, and snapping on fresh gloves. When she stepped forward, the assisting surgeons parted, leaving a perfect spot for her across from the main surgeon.

Aerith smiled behind her gear at the calm, cool, and utterly panicked surgeon in front of her. "All right, Dr. Philodumanos. I'll take the surgery from here."

With a grateful glance, the other doctor handed Aerith the hemostasis and took the role of the assistant. Aerith took a deep breath, closed her eyes in brief prayer to God, and dived in.

She could immediately see why the nurses had seemed so urgent. Sometime during surgery, the heart had begun palpitating irregularly, cutting itself open in multiple spots on the sharpened edges of the surgeons' scalpels. Aerith noted the bizarre situation somewhere in the back of her mind as she took up the hemostasis in hand and began sealing blood vessels.

Yet, as fast as she could cauterize, the blood still collected, the fluid level creeping up insidiously despite the other surgeon's swift and decisive actions with the drain. It was like trying to empty a bathtub with a sieve.

And then, out of nowhere, Aerith felt that familiar little nudge in her heart that told her to use the full extent of her gift. She closed her eyes again momentarily, acknowledging the command. "Let your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

Aerith continued the procedure with her hands, but her mind reached deep inside herself, into the very core of her being. Her power lay there obediently, waiting to be used. Aerith paid her tribute to God before drawing on her talent and allowing the warm, healing flow of energy to stream from her heart and into her fingers.

_Heal_, Aerith thought, watching the green strands of energy leave her hands and sink into the man's body. Even though only she could see it, Aerith always found it a pleasure to watch the magic do its work. Careening through without even the slightest inkling of Aerith's guidance, the energy seemed to know what to do. It spun delicate weaves over every last laceration in the heart, cutting off the profuse bleeding instantaneously; it spread long threads over the entire heart and steadied its pulse, aiding the weary muscle in pumping the blood. The other surgeon's eyes widened as the blood flow slowed and finally stopped altogether and the heartbeat, rallying to the steady palpitations of the magic, settled into a regular rhythm. He looked up, amazed. "How did you…?"

All the while, Aerith continued faithfully sealing every exposed blood vessel with the hemostasis, trusting the healing threads to do the rest.

"How…how did you do that?" the other surgeon asked quietly, finishing draining. "We both tried that tactic for over thirty minutes, and it failed. How did you…how did you do it so that it worked?"

Aerith smiled earnestly at him as she handed the hemostasis away and peeled off her gloves. "I trusted in God. Now let's bring this tired man back to his room so he can rest easy."

Hushed by the vision of the miraculous healing, the nurses and doctors obeyed. Aerith smiled down at the man as he passed. _God has deemed you worthy of the Healing Touch, brother. Be healed and live happily._

"Thank God you hadn't left yet," the nurse breathed, staring up at Aerith in adoration as the operating room cleared. "You saved that man's life. You truly created a miracle."

Aerith smiled, but shook her head. "No, no. What you said before is true. Thank God, not me. _I_ did not save his life; _I_ did not create a miracle. No, I merely served as a vehicle for His holy will, and He decreed that the man would not die on that operating table this day."

The nurse blinked, astonished. And then she laughed. "Dr. Gainsborough, you are truly a spectacular physician."

"Only as spectacular as God allows," replied Aerith humbly as she inclined her head once more and walked away. The nurse watched her leave and shook her head.

"There goes God's greatest gift to humankind since the days of the Testament," the nurse proclaimed, watching the graceful doctor walk away. "There goes humanity's very own miracleworker."

…

_The Hamptons_

The door clicked quietly open at exactly 12:30 PM that day.

_Right on schedule_, he noticed, smirking. _As usual._

_Shff shff, shff shff._ Even the inch-thick carpeting couldn't completely silence those steel-soled shoes.

_Good morning, Tseng,_ he projected in his usual languid manner. He could smell the white flowers adorning the slim branches outside, tousled silkily by the wind. _How do you fare this morning?_

And, as usual, he was met with the bizarre radio silence of the other mind. _Not a flinch, not an inch, _he thought to himself, an amused smile curling his lips.

Even without the gift of traditional sight, his mind perceived everything clearly around him—the pear tree before him, vibrantly white with life; the sleek black birds skimming the water below, their small hearts thrumming rather than beating in their merry, aimless chase; the blank, obedient ivory of the guard standing at the door behind him. He could sense the fainter white outlines of the furniture and layout of the room, their geometric forms shimmering even in the darkness behind his eyes; the mysterious scintillations of countless random energies wandering through the room, appearing and living only for a moment before falling back into oblivion; and the mechanical, aloof entity working purposefully at the desk behind him—Tseng.

_No comment?_ He probed further, edging up to the corners of Tseng's mind. _Ah. I see, then. Perhaps you are still acquainting yourself with my novel conversation vector? _

Though he'd been born blind, he'd also been born with a gift, the capability to see without physically seeing, the ability to close his physical eyes and somehow understand the world with his mind better than his eyes ever could. His unusual talent—his 'inner vision', as it had been labeled—had evolved alongside him, growing exponentially in power and perception until his tenth birthday, when he finally found himself able to 'speak' to others—without ever opening his mouth. Ever since that coming of age five years ago, he had gone utterly mute, choosing to converse purely through thought.

Tseng had been hired as his 'caretaker' a few years back, after he'd nearly given the last babysitter a heart attack when he 'talked' to her for the first time. And, at last, he'd encountered someone who was unfazed by his gift—someone who kept his mind as firmly shut as a closed book. Naturally, this Herculean self-control had piqued his curiosity, and now he spent most of his time exploring new paths to hack Tseng's defenses.

He began focusing his awareness at Tseng curiously. _What are you doing back there, anyway? Isn't it usually just the quick checkup to make sure I haven't killed myself or someth—_

A sudden, powerful pressure pressed on his collarbone and shoulder, effectively arresting all movement above the shoulders. The other arm swiftly snaked across and anchored the deadlock. He barely had the time to feel shock when something sharp pricked his neck.

Only then did the panic reflex kick in as he struggled to free himself. _What the—?_

"Relax. Keep breathing," came the monotone. The pain at the side of his neck started to ebb away…

He felt so sleepy all of a sudden…so desperately ready to nap for a week or so to shake the sudden drowsiness overwhelming him. Some muffled cognitive processes informed him that doing so would be a bad idea, that there was some connection between the stab in his neck and his abrupt lethargy, but no matter how he tried to remember, thought and memory slipped effortlessly away…

His muscles went rubbery, and his hand slid away from the arm wrapped around his neck, twitching. He let his head fall backwards in the supportive embrace of…whoever it was back there, releasing all remaining tension.

Just before his consciousness fluttered out, he knew the culprit…and Tseng's shielded mind stared back at him, the shimmering outline of the empty syringe in his hand…

One last foggy thought slogged laboriously through his mind as the world spun away and left him in blissful darkness.

_Et tu, Brute?_

…

_[unknown]_

He could feel it coming. It was always preceded with that strange vacancy of thought and emotion, as if some omnipotent deity from above had simply scooped out his soul and held it up to the light, peering through it like it was a pane of strangely colored glass. It left him imperturbably placid in the few moments before the real oddities began.

_– is he looking at me anyway? I don't think he is but – so if the parabola is the set of all points equidistant from a fixed point and a fixed line then we can derive that an ellipse is – wonder what's for lunch? It'd better not be that gross cheese we had yesterday, that barely counted as food – if they're even paying attention. I'm not paid enough for – hope she doesn't collect the homework – I HATE PRECALC SO MUCH – need that A if I wanna go to Harvard – wish I knew what an abscissa was – then f(x) = (x - h)² + (y - k)² would stand for –_

"Mr. Strife."

Cloud jerked back into consciousness, almost falling off of his chair. A few of his classmates snickered. "Y-yes?"

His teacher's disapproving gaze bored into him. "Would you like complete Teresa's statement and explain what a hyperbola is in the geometric sense?"

Cloud racked his brain, struggling to dredge up the notes he'd taken before. "A hyperbola – is the set of all points who have – who have a common difference from two fixed points on the Cartesian plane?"

"Very good, Mr. Strife," his professor said, her eyebrows slightly lifted. Apparently she'd thought he wasn't listening. "Naturally, it could use some slight editing, but it's an excellent start." She spied another daydreamer. "Carl, would you like to help Cloud?"

Carl, who had neither done his homework nor paid any attention whatsoever in class, blinked sleepily at her and the board. "Huh?"

Cloud ducked his head and breathed a sigh of relief as laughter erupted around him. He'd passed today's participation grade, thankfully.

And then he frowned, rubbing the side of his head. These random onslaughts of random thoughts – none of them his own – were starting to bother him. He'd dealt with them all his life, but after his sixteenth birthday, they'd started to actually hinder him. It had started out merely as a distracting running commentary in the back of his mind, but now Cloud could barely pick out his own thoughts from the foreign ones.

_And where do they even come from, anyway?_ Cloud wondered. He'd wondered for a while if he was going insane, but eventually judged himself of sound mind and soul – but, then again, it wasn't as if he had actually asked anyone else.

"…And Mr. Strife, if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred thousand times, would you please at least try to keep your pencil—" The bell cut off his teacher's sigh. The class fairly cheered as they quickly packed up and left in a mad flurry of papers, pencils, and calculators.

"Saved by the bell this time, Mr. Strife, but don't expect it to happen again!" his teacher called after Cloud as he fled the room, laughing under his breath with the rest of his friends.

"Geez, you really know how to snooze in class," Tom chuckled, slapping Cloud on the back. "I didn't think it was possible for our little daydreamer to get any more distracted than he already is, but I guess you learn something new every day."

"Ugh, did anybody understand what an abscissa was?" Cameron groaned, fumbling with his math notebook. "I swear, she just runs her mouth and expects us all to understand, like we're all goddam geniuses."

"It's like an x-coordinate, Cam," Tom explained jovially, swinging an arm around Cameron's shoulder. "Kinda like a euphemism for…"

Cloud frowned, retreating into his own mind again. _"Did anybody understand what an abscissa was?"…Why did that question sound familiar?_

"CLOUD. Earth to Mr. Strife!" Tom yelled in Cloud's ear.

"Huh?" Cloud blinked uncomprehendingly. Tom sighed.

Tom rolled his eyes. "There goes our little dreamer again, off into La-la Land. Tell me, is there anything really interesting going on there? Anything more interesting than, say, the real world? All the other guys are ditching us."

Cloud winced as Tom punched him in the arm. "Um, ow, Varisty Tennis Team Captain, ow."

Tom grinned. "Well, if _someone_ didn't keep drifting off, we wouldn't have to remind you every two seconds where we're going."

"Yeah, well…" Cloud struggled to think of a comeback. "…Where _are_ we going again?"

Tom's smile widened. "Lunch, Cloud?"

"Sounds good," Cloud replied gratefully, jogging towards the herd of his classmates ahead.

"…Hey, Cloud."

"Hmm?"

Tom ran lightly alongside Cloud, looking pensive as he studied Cloud out of the corner of his eyes. "You actually do seem kind of distracted nowadays. Do you…have something you need to talk to someone about? I mean…are you sure you're okay?"

_Oh, no, it's nothing. I just hear voices in my head and debate whether I'm insane or not on a daily basis. Oh, and sometimes I can't tell if the voices in my head are someone else's or my own._

Cloud summoned up another brave smile.

"Yes, I'm sure. I'm fine."

Famous last words.

* * *

A/N: Yay for Cloud! :D I wanna be questionably insane, too! :3

Thanks for reading, everyone!

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	2. Chapter II

"Does she have any other family?"

"No…only child. Grandparents on her mother's side deceased; parentage on her father's side is hazy at best, so grandparents were impossible to find."

A sigh sounded. "Well, let's start there…maybe there's an old family grudge or something that we don't know about."

"Do you really think so, ma'am?"

A silence stretched for a couple of minutes. "All I know is that Agent Lockhart was an absolute favorite in this department, if such a thing is possible. I don't understand why or how someone murdered this family, but I know that now it is our national responsibility to figure it out." She paused. "And I'm very, very glad. If there's anyone who needs resolution right now…it's the Lockhart daughter."

"…We'll get right on it."

Footsteps clicked towards the room and Agent Vidria appeared on the threshold, a soft smile on her face. "Hey, Tifa?"

Tifa had heard their entire conversation from her armchair in the comfortably outfitted break room but feigned ignorance as she turned her listless eyes towards the other FBI agent. Agent Vidria had been one of her father's closer colleagues in the Bureau, she remembered; more than once her family had invited the chocolate-eyed, brunette agent over for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners.

Tifa's heart wrenched. Her family… _That means I have to spend the rest of my Thanksgivings and Christmases alone for the rest of my life,_ realized Tifa with a jolt. She blinked back rebellious tears, irritated with herself for crying. _I thought I was too numb to cry,_ Tifa thought angrily, brushing at her eyes.

Agent Vidria watched Tifa sympathetically but said nothing as the teen composed herself again.

"…Yes, Agent Vidria?" Tifa finally replied, her depressed frustration evident.

"Please, call me Lucy," Vidria said softly, smiling at Tifa. "God only knows how many times I've met you outside of his building; I think we're on first-name terms now."

Tifa responded with a shaky smile of her own. Almost against her will, she felt her hopes rising; even when all she owned had all been burned down to nothing, there were still kind people like Vidria – _no, Lucy_, she reminded herself – willing to lend her a hand.

And also all of the power vested in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tifa thought wryly. Her father had apparently been well-loved in the Bureau; his presence would be sorely missed, and his colleagues had already displayed their immense drive and determination to find the perpetrators.

Tifa swallowed another rush of tears at the thought of her father.

"Thank you for this, Agen—I mean, Lucy," Tifa corrected herself. "I appreciate it, really."

Vidria smiled, a little sadly. "I only wish I could do more for you, Teef."

Tifa heard another flurry of whispers from beyond the threshold of the room, and Vidria turned to receive the latest news from another agent. Tifa saw Vidria's expression grow concerned and distressed as she absorbed the news.

"Now?" Vidria asked angrily. "Can't this wait a couple of hours at least?"

Another whisper, and Vidria sighed. "Well if they're that dead-set, I suppose we really don't have much to say."

Vidria turned back to Tifa with an. "Tifa – I'm sorry for this, I really am – but is it possible for you to talk with Agent Wilkins from Homeland Security? He's just here to talk you through what happened today to make sure that they have all the facts before they go ahead with the investigation."

Tifa noticed the shorter man standing just behind Vidria. He seemed amiable enough, in his late twenties with short, dark hair, blue eyes, and enough decency to look apologetic. As he met Tifa's gaze, he gave a little wave and a smile.

"…I think I'll be okay," Tifa said. She could handle herself. The Lockhart family had never been known to be completely paralyzed by anything, even in the face of horrific tragedies such as this one.

_And besides…it's probably the only thing left that I can do to help my parents, _Tifa resolved, lifting her chin a little higher. _I'll do everything that I can to help them find whoever did this._

Vidria seemed surprised for a moment…and then she smiled. "You really are your father's daughter, Tifa," she said softly before allowing Agent Wilkins to enter the room. With one last proud, sympathetic look, Vidria, too, retreated from the room.

Agent Wilkins watched Vidria go before turning to Tifa. "Hi, there, Tifa. I'm Special Agent Todd Wilkins from the Homeland Security Department, and I'm one of the main investigators in your parents' murder case as of right now."

Tifa liked Agent Wilkins instantly – his voice was clear but gentle, sympathetic but not pitying. He had a direct gaze that was not overly aggressive but exuded a comforting sense of self-control and calm.

"…Hi, Agent Wilkins," Tifa greeted quietly.

Agent Wilkins smiled again at her reply, wider this time. "It's good to see you're whole and healthy, Tifa. Are you alright?"

"Fine, thank you." She answered more quickly this time, her brain starting to fall back into its polite rhythms again, those well-worn paths of courtesy and respect.

"That's good to hear," he replied, and to her surprise, he sounded gentle…and honest. "I can't imagine what you've been going through, but I can still admire the strength and courage you have."

Tifa accepted the compliment with grace, but upon further contemplation, she couldn't help wondering …

What does Homeland Security have to do with my parents?

Tifa's father had worked in the Bureau's intelligence department, collecting and squirreling away data and evidence on every type of large-scale law violations, from white-collar crimes and other upper-class financial frauds to human trafficking rings and smuggling. He'd been something of a adored success story in the Bureau – coming from a broken home, he'd made it into Stanford, then worked his way up into the Bureau's highest echelons with nothing but his intelligence and diligence.

_So what would Homeland Security want with Dad? _The beginnings of a frown tugged at Tifa's mouth. _He's never even left the country before._

"Tifa…" Agent Wilkins seemed on the verge of saying something important. He sighed. "This is going to sound strange, but I need you to just listen."

_Curiouser and curiouser._ "…I'm listening."

Agent Wilkins fixed those earnest blue eyes on her own.

"Tifa…do you believe in Genius?"

It was obvious from the way he emphasized the last word that Wilkins did not mean "genius" in any normal sense of the word. Tifa frowned.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Wilkins didn't even blink. "Genius."

"I…I don't follow."

Wilkins's voice was steady now. "Genius – as classified by Division XIII of Homeland Security, the natural gift of a living creature to do the impossible, the extraordinary, and the _super_natural."

Tifa blinked for a moment…and then her eyes narrowed.

"…Is this some kind of sick joke?" she hissed, feeling the first hot licks of anger bubbling up from her grief-sodden heart. Tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes again. "Are you seriously kidding about this right now?" Her voice grew louder and sharper with every word.

Wilkins gazed at her patiently. "Tifa – please, just – just let me explain – "

Tifa's temper flared. "Explain what? What could you possibly have to say for yourself?"

"Tifa – "

With some difficulty, Tifa reined in her anger and replaced the rage with a chilling courtesy. "Agent Wilkins, I'm sorry, but I don't think I can…I don't think I can listen to you right now. If you'll excuse me." Tifa stood to leave.

Wilkins sighed tiredly and rubbed a hand through his hair. "Tifa…please. I swear I'm not making fun of you. Let me get you some water, and let's try this again, okay?"

Tifa glared.

"I don't mean to threaten you, but Tifa, if you don't talk to me about this, Homeland Security will just send someone else," Wilkins continued gently. "And he or she may not be as accommodating."

Tifa struggled to control her emotions. On one hand, she could barely believe what she had heard come out of the federal agent's mouth…but on the other hand, there had been something…something strange about her parents' death. And if Wilkins was telling the truth about this…'Genius' business…

Tifa slowly sat back down, still suspicious. Wilkins offered a wan smile. "Thank you, Tifa. I'll make it worth your while." He stood. "Let me get you a glass of water, okay?"

"Fine." I need a couple of seconds to regroup, anyway.

Wilkins strode briskly over to the counter and poured two cups of water, each movement swift and decisive. Taking both cups in one hand, he returned to Tifa and offered her one of the drinks.

"Thanks," Tifa said, mostly out of force of habit. Not feeling all that thirsty, Tifa sat and held the thin, waxy disposable cup in her hands, the cool water within sloshing very slightly back and forth.

Wilkins set his own cup directly at the center of the table without taking a drink. "Watch, please."

Tifa looked up sharply. Wilkins's voice had gone from tired to abruptly professional in a matter of seconds – and he was now staring as if enraptured by the paper cup in front of him.

_There is something seriously weird going on here,_ Tifa thought, slowly moving her own gaze to the water in the cup. _Who the hell is this guy?_

And then, for an instant, she stopped thinking altogether.

Wide-eyed, Tifa saw minute, silvery lattices start to form over the top of the water. They wavered, then solidified, then spread, branching out in lovely, angular branches across the surface of the liquid.

That can't be…ice?

Even as Tifa watched, the miraculously fast freezing sped further, and within a minute, the entire cup of water had turned into a cup of solid ice.

Wilkins blinked a couple of times as if coming out of a trance. He glanced once at the cup, and, seeming satisfied with his work, returned his eyes to Tifa's.

"…That is what we call a Genius."

Tifa still stared at the cup of ice. "…A Genius?"

"Like I said before, it's a loose term applied to all inexplicable talents that any living creature might possess," Wilkins continued calmly, a smile on his face again. "I happen to be classified as an Environmental Genius – I can manipulate temperatures within a reasonable distance of myself as I see fit."

_No. No, this can't be real. That's impossible. It's a trick,_ Tifa thought to herself, her mind rushing to deny what it had just seen, barely registering Wilkins's words. _No no no no no, this isn't real, it can't be…_

"What does any of this have to do with me?" Tifa said, sounding a little higher-pitched than normal. "I don't…I can't believe that…"

Wilkins laid a steadying hand on her shaking ones – _wait, when did I start shaking?_ – and gave her another placid smile. "Tifa. Relax. It's okay."

Tifa collected herself at the sound of Wilkins's voice. She closed her eyes and controlled her breathing, concentrating on her fluttering heart. It was one of her defining qualities, her 'God-given, tough-as-nails bloodline talent,' as her father would say proudly – to clear her mind and empty her thoughts even in the most stressful of situations. _Even when the situation is borderline crazy._

"…Okay," Tifa finally said, opening her eyes after having sufficiently calmed herself. "Okay, I…I think I'm okay."

Wilkins met her eyes directly when she next lifted her gaze. "Are you sure?"

Tifa struggled to keep a lid on it, averting her eyes and closing them. _OhmyGodohmyGod this cannot be real…_ "Yes." _Deep breaths, Teef. Deep breaths_. "But…but what does…Genius have to do with my mom and dad's deaths?"

Wilkins's voice sounded perfectly steady. "…We have reason to believe that you have a Genius, Tifa."

Tifa looked up sharply. "What?"

"Just after you heard the news…" Tifa's mind rewound desperately. "When you heard that your parents had died…" After another flurry of shuffling, her mind stopped, transfixed by that scene again.

"…Yes?"

"Tifa…you stopped time."

She blinked.

And then burst out laughing.

"Are you…serious right now?" she gasped through every giggle. Tifa could hear her voice sounding crazier and crazier by the second, but she honestly couldn't have cared less. Her home, her parents, and everything she owned, excepting the clothes on her back and the car in the parking lot, were now ashes drifting on the wind; her life was ruined, her hope gone, and now – now some random, maverick suit from the federal government was telling her she could stop time?

"You have got to be joking me," Tifa chuckled, her giggles slowly subsiding. "That's a funny thought, though. Good try."

Wilkins sighed, apparently unruffled by her outburst. "I see you are skeptical."

"Skeptical"…doesn't even start to cover it.

"But I must insist that, even if you don't believe me now, for the time being, Homeland Security's Division XIII take you under protective custody," Wilkins continued placidly. "I know it's hard to understand, but your safety is currently one of the Bureau's highest priorities."

Tifa stared. "…You're being completely serious right now?"

"Yes."

Tifa sighed. "Well, if you've come this far already, I'm guessing this whole thing is more of a formality than anything. You're planning on taking me regardless, right?"

Wilkins blinked, taken aback…and then gave a wry grin. "I forgot. Daughter of a federal officer – you know bureaucracy." The grin faded. "I'm sorry, but you are correct in your assumption. It is of the utmost importance that you are under our supervision."

"Well, worse things have happened, I suppose," Tifa said with more than a touch of bitterness. "I'll go with you."

Wilkins looked sympathetically at her. "I…if it's any comfort, I offer my sincerest apologies for your loss. I know what it's like to lose everything."

Tifa's curiosity was piqued, but she remained silent.

"If you're ready, the entourage is waiting outside," Wilkins said quietly after a few more moments of silence. "We can pick up your car and any other personal affects that you…"

…_any other personal affects you have left after the giant fireball of a bomb blew up your house? _Tifa thought acrimoniously. She squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her hands tighter. _No…wait. Don't blame this on Wilkins. He's trying to do his job, nothing more. Don't blame him._

_Find the one who did it. _

_And then get them._

Tifa opened her eyes again, and this time they were clear. Determined.

She stood.

"Let's go."

…

"He's ready."

The burly man took another chomp on his cigar, his every movement speaking arrogance. "You're sure?"

"Yes, sir." The white-coated scientists exchanged glances with one another before their leader amended his statement. "W-well, as sure as we can be within theoretical parameters…in…in this particular case."

The man grunted. "Well, then." He turned on heel to face his silent, dark guards lined up behind him, waiting for his orders as obediently as trained hounds. He picked out one at random, jerking his head to accentuate his command. "Valentine. Go in there and wake him up."

Vincent Valentine inclined his head respectfully before lifting his scarlet gaze from his feet. "As you wish."

Vincent's heels clicked crisply on the hospital-style tiled floor as he strode to the door of the sealed room that served as both prison and sanctuary to the person within.

Pneumatic hisses and a blast of chilled air welcomed Vincent as he stepped through the entrance. Under the observation of researchers, colleagues, and employer standing outside, Vincent continued towards the bed and laid one hand on the railing of the bed, taking a moment to study the form.

The patient – if he could be considered that – lay perfectly still and perfectly straight in the exact position that the surgeons had put him in seventy-two hours earlier. Even now, he barely moved, barely even breathed under the influence of the heavy sedatives that had been pumped aggressively into his system through the IV in his left arm. He had inherited his impressive height from his father, but was as delicately built as his gentle mother. Light, almost white-blonde locks spilled over the bandage swathed over his eyes – the unseeing and yet brilliant eyes that had once been the exact shade and shape of his mother's.

Vincent looked back up at his employer behind the glass one last time.

"Do it," Vincent read from President Shinra's terse nod.

And without another wasted moment, Vincent leaned down and spoke, somehow fitting authority and deference in the same tone.

"Master Shinra…it is now time to awaken."

For a split second, nothing happened. The form didn't so much as twitch a finger in recognition. Vincent looked back up at President Shinra. He seemed furious with the scientists, rounding on their cowering leader with soundless admonitions beyond the soundproofed glass.

And then Vincent heard the softest noise—a long, extended intake of breath. Vincent whipped his gaze back at the patient, resisting the urge to backpedal.

The bedridden figure drew himself up slowly but purposefully in the manner of a half-dreaming sleepwalker. At first he moved strangely, driftingly, as if he were suspended in water. Then, in the last foot of his dreamy ascent, as if his body had realized it as actually in motion, not merely held tense in the bizarre sensation of dream-movement, he jerked upright like a marionette controlled by half its strings and a particularly unskilled hand.

President Shinra hadn't noticed yet, still busy roaring at the scientists. Vincent suddenly felt very isolated and very exposed, separated from the outside world in a sanitized, whitewashed bubble with a somehow menacing other presence. The white walls seemed to folding inwards, and Vincent could swear that something was filling the room, silent and suffocating as an icy, early-morning mist.

The drowsy sleeper seemed to be regaining his bearings, cocking in an almost fox-like manner, tilting his head at a slight, curious angle. He seemed more puzzled than alarmed at his blindness.

And then, without any physical provocation, the blindfold burst loose and fell into disarrayed loops of gauze around his neck and shoulders.

Vincent quashed the reflex to react to the sudden movement but allowed himself to stare. Those bandages had been wrapped and anchored securely with a metal clip in the back; there was no way they had just fallen off of their own accord. And yet there had been no visible aid in removing them; his arms still lay inert, useless on the hospital-style sheets.

His eyes were still closed, to Vincent's mixed relief and concern. Vincent realized he—rather oddly—had been dreading the time when he'd see the new and "improved" patient. He felt rather selfishly comforted by the delay of the revelation. But in the same thought, Vincent knew that, if after all the time and energy, surgery after painful surgery, he still remained sightless, it was truly a lost cause.

And President Shinra was not known to be a champion of lost causes.

But, as if reading Vincent's mind, the patient's dark eyelashes fluttered. His hand twitched. And then, in very measured, deliberate increments, those eyes opened.

And saw light for the first time.

The dazzling light poured through the myriad of glacier-blue shards nestled fragilely in his irises as it had done millions of times before, lighting them with the oddest sense of cold fire. But for the first time, the light reached into the deep darkness of his pupils and bridged the gaps in the bizarre, incomplete construct of intricate yet useless circuitry that had rested blind and dormant since its creation.

And then, with that simple connection of a broken track, the full extent of his power silently and instantaneously blossomed.

A chill lanced up Vincent's spine as soon as those eyes flew open. He took an involuntary step back, abruptly and irrationally struck by an instinctive fear he hadn't felt since the first day of his Turk training. It was certain now – something was filling the room like an inflating balloon, making it difficult to breathe, turning his thoughts to sluggish mush. To his own utter shock, Vincent swayed on his feet, suddenly tired. His vision blurred as if he had just returned from a three-day-long, solo stakeout; his limbs felt pleasantly warm and loose as they did after long-distance pursuits or extended conditioning sessions.

Vincent was bewildered by – and completely unprepared for – his body's betrayal. He stumbled forwards practically half-asleep, reaching a slow hand to try and grab the impossibly faraway edge of the railing –

And then a steadier arm caught him from behind. Barely conscious but still cognizant, Vincent recognized the suit-clad arm of his savior as that of one of his fellow Turks. He couldn't tell who exactly it was, though, or what the Turks were even doing in the room. President Shinra usually only directly controlled the Turks in the worst-case scenarios when any residual security had been blown to hell and a significant mark was at stake.

The mark?

Young Rufus Shinra, heir to the Shinra empire, at last granted the gift of sight.

The worst-case scenario?

The carefully crafted weapon losing its grip on the inborn talent that had been so vigilantly nurtured over the past six months in the first few seconds of wakefulness.

Coincidentally, that particular weapon also being heir to the Shinra empire.

Hence the Turks' intervention.

Vincent felt himself being lowered gently to the floor through his dim realization, but he still looked up hazily, watching the standoff. It was a textbook corral-and-capture – or, at least, it would have been, if the mark had been struggling. As it was, the mark simply stood there – _wait, when had he stood up? Had he missed that?_ – staring at the other Turks, perhaps stunned into silence by his newfound vision.

Measured, steel-toed steps heralded the arrival of the leader of the Turks, identifiable to Vincent by the sheer familiarity of that perfectly paced stride. It had been the metronome of all the Turks for their entire careers; they'd learned to sleep, eat, fight, and breathe solely on the count of that regular, now-comforting sound of steel and leather.

And the Turks subconsciously relaxed, their terror dissipating even as they faced down their most foreign, hostile mark yet. Their leader, their omnipotent, infallible Tseng was present—and that alone was enough for the Turks.

Tseng stopped his advance, and the room went utterly still. From what Vincent could tell through his fuzzy eyes, Tseng and the mark were facing off in complete silence, the indifferent tips of gleaming black shoes opposing the all-too-human flesh and blood protected only by vulnerable skin. They seemed to halt there for an eternity, enacting one of the oldest yet still one of the most commanding power-struggle situations in human history.

And finally, there came the calm, assertive command:

"Stand down, Shinra."

And there was only a millisecond's worth of hesitation before Shinra miraculously obeyed. The tension eased momentarily before shock set in as the heir of the Shinra dynasty did the unthinkable – and knelt.

Yes, perhaps it was a compromise of a kneel, with one leg still held defiantly upright. Perhaps it was not the complete surrender expected of the Turks, with his back still mostly straight, his posture less than perfect. But the deference was still there in the slight incline of his neck and the sheer fact that he'd assumed even a half-kneeling form. And Vincent could barely believe his eyes because he, along with the rest of Turks, knew this one truth:

The Shinra knelt before no one.

"It seems the two of you have come to an agreement of sorts."

The hulking presence that was President Shinra then strolled confidently into the room, his ruinously expensive Italian shoes sliding into view. Even as the Turks deferred, rearranging themselves to better protect the president, the younger Shinra showed no sign of recognition.

President Shinra chuckled, obviously pleased. "Another job well done, Tseng." Vincent's imagination could supply Tseng accepting the compliment with a brief dip of the head.

"And here I thought that the boy would never be broken," President Shinra said amusedly, the smile – or, more accurately, the smirk – evident in his voice. "If you can tame people simply with a couple surgeries like these…" He chuckled again. Vincent suppressed a little spark of discomfort – President Shinra's laughter rarely sounded genuinely pleasant. "These recent advances in medicine are simply miraculous."

President Shinra then focused all of his attention on the still-kneeling figure before them. Without any obvious provocation, the figure stood swiftly, visibly startling a few of the Turks with the speed and fluidity of his motions. He certainly did not move like someone who'd recently lain in bed for months on end.

"…Well, then. Seems like the boy can still hear thoughts," President Shinra, also recovering from some sort of surprise. It took Vincent's sluggish mind a couple of seconds to fully process the words, but eventually the logic yielded a shocking conclusion: the patient had just obeyed a command spoken only in the confines of President Shinra's mind.

"…Dr. Eisenstein, come here." The president's voice did not bode well – it sounded morbidly curious, and Vincent could sense an unwelcome experiment on its way. The scientist entered, his tread uneven and hurried.

Vincent could hear the researcher tweaking his glasses nervously as he stood before President Shinra. "Y-yes, sir?"

Suddenly Dr. Eisenstein gave a strangled squeak and a bodily jerk, as if he'd stepped on a live wire. All of his incessant twitching ceased as his body went rigid – and then limp. And then, without further warning, Dr. Eisenstein silently crumpled to Vincent's level, the side of his slack-jawed face smashing the ground with wince-worthy force.

But Dr. Eisenstein's eyes were open. And as Vincent stared into those blue eyes, he recognized the distinct stillness that he'd seen a thousand times before, the unnatural tranquility that yielded only one conclusion:

Dr. Eisenstein was dead.

But how? Eisenstein had been standing a good three feet from everyone in the room, and there had not been even the soft puff of a silenced gun releasing a bullet. So what had killed the unfortunate, wide-eyed doctor?

Unless, of course, it had been _his_ doing…

President Shinra broke the confused silence with a deep, ominous chuckle. "…Oh ho ho…this is even better than I could have ever imagined. If he's able to kill without touching the target… My, but he's truly the perfect weapon. I must say that I am completely pleased with this little venture. Well done, Tseng. Well done."

"I humbly accept your compliments," Tseng replied in his inflectionless tone.

President Shinra seemed to be satisfied with the results of his experiment. "Well, now, I suppose show-and-tell is over for now." He walked towards the door, leather toes tapping on the tile. "I'll leave him in your care, Tseng. Keep him safe, hmm? I'd absolutely hate to lose this gem."

Vincent shivered at the mere thought of the Turks being entrusted with this frightening being and hoped half-heartedly that Tseng would decline.

"I gratefully accept this responsibility."

What little remained of Vincent's dwindling consciousness crumbled, and his mind dipped into a mild, confused disarray of thought.

"Good. I'm dispatching Masamune, by the way, so don't expect to put him to use until he's done with his current mission."

"Understood."

President Shinra almost walked out of the room before turning around again, as if he'd been caught by some trivial afterthought.

"Oh…and see if you can take care of Valentine, will you? I'd rather not have to replace him."

Tseng's heels turned towards Vincent as the last of the color bled out of the scene.

"…Of course."

Vincent saw Tseng approaching and made a heroic effort to rise from his stupor, to little avail. And then something touched him – not physically, but mentally, as if some other, alien consciousness had brushed up against his in the wary but cautiously friendly way of an encounter between two wolves.

Vincent instinctively drew back, more startled by than afraid of the other entity, whatever it was. But even though Vincent's physical form did not respond, he still felt himself drawing away from that other being in spirit.

Vincent was, to say the least, alarmed. _What the hell is going on?_

Whatever that other thing was – Vincent was strangely struck by the image of a white form – had no such qualms about contact and took its next bold strides forward towards Vincent. Still clumsy in the maneuvering of his own mind, Vincent failed to dodge the next lunge, and suddenly everything went white but for the contented half-smile of a handsome white Cheshire cat prowling in the distance…

Hello, Vincent Valentine.

Vincent would have yelped – rather un-Turk-ishly – if he'd been physically able to. That voice, clear and amused, was most certainly not his own. It was rather disconcerting as it was – he was both moving and yet not moving, looking at a white cat in a white room and yet also staring vaguely up into the familiar and yet unfamiliar features of Tseng…

_What did I do to deserve this?_ Vincent thought with a little sigh. I thought the Turks' job was supposed to be straightforward: sabotage, kidnap, and kill. _That's why I signed up, after all. Why do I have to suffer the mental acrobatics again?_

Vincent could almost swear that the cat winked. Its tail flicked, its whiskers twitched, and all of it faded out for good except the clever cunning of its glacier-blue eyes.

Sleep, Vincent Valentine. You will have time enough later to think on your predicament. For now, sleep.

Vincent prepared to protest – even if he was insane, he was a Turk, for heavens' sake! Turks were the sly hands and eyes that worked only in the infinite darkness of Shinra Electric Company, tweaking the threads of fate as directed. The Turks were the reason why some nights, Midgar's citizens would tremble in their beds, praying to a god they barely believed in. Turks were fearless, merciless, and did not exist – and they certainly did not obey the word of cats, no matter how low they sank.

_Fair enough, then._ The cat seemed more amused than ever, its eyes narrowing with a chilling mirth. _But Turks do obey their master, do they not?_

Vincent blinked, and, before he could remind himself how strange it was to talk to a cat, replied. _What?_

The cat's smile appeared again, a sliver of silver against a vast expanse of white.

And then Vincent saw the true face behind that white, whiskered façade.

…Remember me?

Vincent then promptly and obediently slept without question, closing his eyes while his mind still reeled with the fact that President Shinra was impossibly, inexplicably wrong:

His son, Rufus Shinra, had not been broken. In fact, his son was simply waiting, waiting patiently and enduringly with the deceiving smile of the Chesire cat, for its quarry to reveal its blind side.

And then nothing would stop that flash of claw and the blood that would stain forever that hated, blinding whiteness.

…

_Los Angeles, California_

Zack, Yuffie, and Reno stepped into their apartment in unison. "Damn, it's nice to be home," Reno grinned, shrugging out of his jacket and slinging it carelessly over a nearby chair before moving into the family room.

It was an expansive, well-furnished apartment that could easily have been mistaken for the residence of a successful – if rather sloppy – businessman. Full of warm, earthy-toned textiles and paints that neatly complemented the solid-wood furniture, the rooms were lit with bright but diffused lighting that gave the entire living area a welcoming vibrancy.

The three of them collapsed on sofas around a central coffee table littered with papers, empty soda cans, miscellaneous candies, and a half-eaten blueberry pie. Reno plucked a Hershey's kiss from amongst the rubbish on the table, leaned back, and slapped his feet up on the tabletop. "So what's next, Zack?" he asked through a mouthful of chocolate.

Zack yawned and stretched, rubbing his eyes. "I guess we should get rid of the Hope Diamond first…"

"Already posted the sale on the black market," Yuffie chimed in. She leaned forward and tucked her head behind an arm, doodling with the other. "We've already gotten over ten thousand hits and maybe fifty serious bids."

"Geez, they like to move fast," Zack mumbled blearily. He yawned again. "Stupid FBI interrogation's made me super drowsy."

"Aww, is little Zacky-poo sleepy?" Reno cackled, slapping Zack on the back. "Go catch a little shut-eye, man. You've been up for practically two days straight now."

"Don't mind if I do," Zack agreed vaguely, rolling over onto his other side. He was asleep within seconds.

Yuffie sighed, turning back to her sheet of paper. She tapped her pencil on the table. "It's gonna take a while for all of the bidders to fight each other for this. I mean, that last Van Gogh took, like, three years to finally settle at a decent price. And that was a painting. Who knows how long we'll be waiting for them to decide on the right price for the largest diamond known to mankind."

Reno laced his fingers behind his head. "Got any suggestions?"

Yuffie seemed to debate something before walking over to a pile of miscellaneous papers and mail on the coffee table. She rummaged for a few moments and then extracted a perfectly unassuming, flat white envelope.

"Ooh. Mail," Reno yawned. "Very interesting, but I don't see how that could help us."

Yuffie scowled briefly before donning a look of contemplation. "Actually, it's a job offer."

Reno perked up. "A what?"

"A job offer." Yuffie widened the slit in the already-opened envelope and handed Reno the stack of papers enclosed. "Take a look. It's an…interesting one."

Reno took the bundle. He pulled a pen from his pocket and popped the cap with his teeth, absentmindedly twiddling the writing utensil as he skimmed the sheets.

The twiddling slowed and stopped as Reno continued staring at the paper. "Okay, first, I want to know how they know our names. And second…this sounds like a…very, very illegal offer."

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "As if that's ever stopped you. And get this – that's not the only one."

Reno's eyebrows threatened to disappear behind the fringes of bangs hanging over his bright green eyes. "What do you mean, like there's another one?"

"Yeah." Yuffie shuffled the papers lying on the table until she found another, somewhat rumpled, medium-sized yellow package. "I was going to open this before we left for Washington, but between all the other stuff that was going on and the heist…"

Reno took the package and opened it…and almost instantly chucked it across the room.

"What? What's wrong?" Yuffie asked, startled by Reno's reaction.

"Get back. I saw a light blinking in there," Reno said tersely, scooting behind the table as he glared at the fallen package, "and I'm 99% sure it was a bomb."

Yuffie's eyes widened. She hopped over to Zack and punched him in the shoulder. "Zack! Zack! We need you to do something!"

"Call the electrician," Zack mumbled sleepily. "We can afford to use a couple hundred to fix—"

"It's a BOMB, Zack," Yuffie hollered in Zack's ear. Zack jolted up, half because of Yuffie's proximity, half because of her declaration.

"Wh-what?"

Reno jerked his head grimly towards the wall where the package lay. "Do you think that you can defuse it?"

Zack frowned. "But you're the pyro. Can't you just eat the fire or something?"

Reno rolled his eyes. "While yes, I am godly to an unwholesome degree, I do have my limitations. Sure, I can subdue an explosion of flame, but if it's at all concussory—which, no doubt, it will be—then I can do nothing about the fact that your eardrums and eyeballs will pop from the pressure in such an enclosed area such as this room."

Yuffie gave a disgusted squeak.

Zack rolled sleepily off of the couch, strands of his spiky hair pressed to his cheek. "Lemme see it, okay? You guys stay back, and I'll go see if I can handle it."

"And if you can't handle it?" Yuffie asked fearfully, merely a pair of worried dark eyes and unruly short hair peeking over the sofa.

"Then we run like hell," Zack declared, approaching the envelope with a nonchalant tread that hid his own nervousness. He picked up the package gingerly by a corner and set it down on the kitchen table.

"For future reference, Reno, don't go around chucking potential bombs everywhere. It's generally not a good idea to disturb things like that, yeah?" Zack scowled as he inspected the abused envelope.

"Well, I figured you'd appreciate me getting as far away from it as possible, seeing as how I am a pyrokinetic," Reno said facetiously, his voice sweet. "But I'll be sure to just let it blow up in my hand next time."

"Okay, whose the one handling the bomb right now with his face barely an inch from the explosive?" Zack scowled, glaring at Reno and Yuffie, who were cowering behind a sofa. "That's right, that's what I thought. Now shut up so I can concentrate, okay?"

"You're just sour 'cuz you lost an argument," Yuffie burbled cheerily. Zack ignored her as he slid the explosive out. It was a pretty basic setup—a little block of C4 attached to a detonator and a timer. And, as Reno predicted, it was more concussory than incendiary.

Zack sighed in relief (very cautiously). He then drew up energy from the static electricity in his clothing and the carpet and prepared to defuse the alarm internally.

"How does it look?" Yuffie called.

"It's not too bad," Zack replied. "Just your run-of-the-mill block explosive. Luckily the timer's digital, so it won't be too hard to fry the countdown for good."

"While this all sounds great, can you also do it without blowing us all up?" Reno interrupted bluntly.

Zack rolled his eyes. "Yes, I can, Reno. Don't worry your little red head." He released the energy forming between his fingers, willing it to target the specific internal mechanisms that would trigger the explosive. The countdown slowed…and then stopped.

Zack released a sigh of relief. "Well that wasn't too ba—"

And then the countdown jumped to five seconds remaining.

Zack's eyes widened. There was no time to explain, no time to wonder. He blazed through all of his options—_4:00_—and then picked up the device—_3:00_. He then raced for the window—_2:00_—shattered the glass with a crackling, concentrated burst of electricity—_1:00_—and finally took a flying leap out of the building, focusing his remaining energy to the bottoms of his heels to propel himself unnaturally far out of the building as he threw the package as hard as he could.

_0:00._ Zack saw the little box erupt into a huge, hungry blossom of orange flames that unfurled its angry petals with a feral speed. It was almost pretty for a moment, suspended impossibly in the air like a great, sentient chimera taken to wing.

And then came the sonic boom.

The pressure from the bomb hurled Zack violently through the air in a scorching wave of heat, sound, and light. Zack instinctively closed his eyes as the breath as knocked out of his lungs. It felt less like being smacked with a block of pressurized air than running into a solid brick wall.

But then he was free of the pressure and found himself flying through the night sky at a dizzying speed. It almost felt like flying, and the stars seemed so close he could almost touch them…

He started to fall.

Zack shook himself out of his daze as he lost altitude at an alarming rate. He had just enough cognitive function to curl his body into a ball to minimize the damage of impact before he hit a very real and very painful roof. Glass shattered under him, its jagged edges clawing as he passed, crackling its raucous complaint. Zack felt his body reciprocate with a couple of ominous cracks of its own…

And then, thankfully, he felt nothing at all.

…

Los Angeles, California, elsewhere that night

Aerith gave a tired yawn as she stretched out along her bed. She snuggled with her comforter, wrapping her tired legs and feet in the thick blanket's fluffy security as she turned her eyes upwards towards the enormous skylight installed over her bed. The stars twinkled and winked at her through the glass. Curled up and tucked away in one corner of her king-sized bed, Aerith finally began to relax.

_Another Chosen life today,_ Aerith mused as she began weaving her wet hair back into its usual braid. _It seems like God calls upon his earthly liaisons more and more frequently nowadays._

Aerith sighed as she realized she'd left her pink ribbon sitting on the dresser a few feet away. Unmotivated to cross the distance, Aerith let go of the half-formed braid, letting the strands fall out of their orderly pattern. She stared down at her neatly folded hands, imagining that they were covered again in that soft, soothing green glow that heralded a miraculous healing. _If only there were a world where I did not have to use this power._

Aerith released another heartfelt sigh as she remembered all the people she had been able to save with only the mortal skill of the scalpel and suture…and all those that she hadn't. Sometimes, even with her unshakable faith, she wished that God had simply withheld the healing talent from her or given her complete control over it. To know that there might have been a chance she could have saved that soul, if only for Heaven's mandate…

Aerith shook her head slightly. _No, I will not doubt. I trust our Heavenly Father. He and He alone is omniscient, and He does work in His mysterious ways. I will not assume myself so superior as to argue with His choices._

A cold trickle of water on her back reminded Aerith that her hair was still soaked. She gave it another rub with the towel and began reaching towards the dresser for the ribbon lying just out of reach.

And then something fell through the skylight.

Well, _hurled_ was perhaps a more accurate word for it. Or maybe _pelted_. Whatever it was, it completely blew through the glass separating Aerith from the stars with brutal force, landing hard on the bed before almost comically coming to a bouncing off of the springy mattress. Then the unidentified black mass dropped off of the other side of the bed with a loud, final thump.

Aerith found herself staring in complete silence at the other side of the bed. She had literally been so surprised that she'd forgotten to scream. She slid off of the bed, careful to avoid the glass now littering her comforter and floor, and picked her way delicately towards whatever it was…

And spotted the telltale scarlet stain forming quickly on her carpet.

Upon the sight of blood, Aerith's training as a physician kicked in. She quickly navigated around the glass to whomever it was lying prone on the floor.

Aerith processed his appearance mechanically: maybe twenty years old, with black, ridiculously tousled hair; a muscular if less-than-bulky build; young, angular features; dressed from head to toe in black combat clothing with a bright point of silver adorning his ear. He was sprawled unconscious on the ground, lying on his side with one arm tucked awkwardly under him, the other flung out towards the bed.

Aerith suppressed the urge to wince as she noted the angry, glass-filled gouges strafing a good deal of his exposed skin. _That's going to hurt when we have to take them out later._

She reached down and placed two tentative fingers on an inch of undamaged skin on his neck. _ Good, he's got a steady pulse_, she approved.

Aerith then pulled the sheet off of the bed and cleared the glass away as best as she could, swiping the cloth broadly to wipe away the remaining shards. She then very gingerly rolled him onto his back, careful not to disturb the arm he'd been lying on.

And then she saw him flinch.

Oh, dear.

That youthful brow furrowed and he released a grunt of pain, his relatively undamaged right arm quickly moving to cradle his left. His legs shuffled for a moment, as if he were trying to muster the energy to stand, but then he stopped with a subdued yelp of pain as he placed weight on his right ankle.

_It looks like he broke that arm; might have sprained his ankle, too_, Aerith thought, a little frown on her face as she watched him grimace again. _Not to mention that he might very well have a concussion, depending on how he hit the glass and how he fell… _

He winced again and lay still, as if either gathering his energy or fading back into unconsciousness.

"Hello?" Aerith called, leaning forward over his face to block out the direct glare of the lights.

Confused, the unidentified falling star fluttered his eyes once, twice, and finally found himself blinking at Aerith's face.

Aerith blinked, thrown off-guard. She'd been expecting brown or green – but he boasted the prettiest light-blue eyes she'd ever seen, their color seeming derived directly from the summer seas. Those eyes flickered hazily again in confusion, and he squinted up at Aerith with an expression of utter bewilderment.

"Umm…where am I?"

Aerith experienced an unbidden flush of heat as she realized that she'd been goggling openly at his face for the past couple of seconds. She beat a hasty retreat while berating herself, cheeks flaming. _Nice job, Aerith. That was so awkward…_

"You umm…fell through…my skylight…" Aerith said haltingly as she gathered the courage to speak again.

The young adult's brow furrowed further.

"I did what?"

Internally, Aerith panicked at her own lack of finesse. _What's wrong with me? I haven't been this shy since my pre-med years! This is a patient, Aerith. A patient. Not a cute boy that you flirt with like some silly schoolgirl – he's an injured, probably highly disoriented patient that requires immediate medical attention—_

And then, with a chime of broken glass, he sat up.

Aerith let out a little gasp of surprise. After falling through a roof, he should have been barely coherent enough to speak – and yet here he was, practically raring to get back on his feet.

"Sir – I must insist that you sit back down!" Aerith voiced, forcing authority back into her voice as she saw him gathering his feet under him and bracing his body heavily on his right arm. _He's not seriously going to try to stand, is he?_

He glanced at her fuzzily. "Who are you again?"

_Just like I suspected – he's still disoriented,_ Aerith thought. "I'm Aerith Gainsborough – I'm a doctor, and I advise you to at least sit down before you – "

He'd been in the process of straightening up when he suddenly tipped off-balance again, veering dangerously to the left. Without really thinking, Aerith leapt to keep him upright, reaching out her arms…

Glass pricked her feet as she half-caught him. He was now dependent on Aerith for support, and the glass dug deeper as she bore more of his weight.

"Before you fall," Aerith finished with a sigh. _Oh, good, now I'm bleeding, too._

"Ugh – sorry 'bout that – can't see straight," he growled, rubbing his eyes with his good arm as he tried to right himself once more.

"Oh, no you don't," Aerith declared, pulling his weight back down to rest on her. "I think that one tumble is one too many for you."

As Aerith supported him, she realized that the back of his shirt was soaking. Aerith frowned as she pulled her hand away – there was blood smeared on her palm. _I need to get somewhere where I can really take a proper look at him._

She steered her bewildered patient to the bed and bodily sat him down. He still seemed to be trying to walk, but his mind and legs weren't functioning quite as they should have been. He ended up wiggling his feet and ankles aimlessly, frowning disapprovingly down at their disobedient behavior.

"Hey – doc – why's the world all fuzzy and stuff?" he mumbled as Aerith began dabbing at a trickle of blood running down from his scalp. _Yep, he definitely has a concussion._

"I believe you received a concussion when you fell through…when you fell." She addressed him gently, pulling out a penlight. _No need to confuse him more with all the details of his little "fall". _ "You knocked your head for sure, but I don't think it's too bad…"

Aerith contemplated the stranger swaying where he sat, his dark bangs framing a sleepy face. _He really is cute…no, no, no, wait, that's not right! _Aerith took a silent, deep breath and composed herself.

"Hmm…say, I forgot to ask. What's your name?" she asked, keeping her voice perfectly neutral. _It's a perfectly legal medical question. I need to assess the extent of his concussion. It's a perfectly normal, medical question…_

"Zack. Zack Fair," he replied, a small smile tugging on his lips as he looked up at her and focused for the first time. "And what's your name, princess?"

…"Princess"? Aerith couldn't help but smile widely back. "Dr. Aerith Gainsborough. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fair."

Zack waved a hand nonchalantly. "Eh, drop all the formality. Call me Zack."

"Well, then, Zack, I suppose I should inform you that your wounds don't seem to be in need of urgent medical attention," Aerith replied cheerfully, "though I would recommend some rest and time to heal."

Even with a bloody lip, Zack cracked a full smile. "That's good to hear, doc."

His optimism was infectious. She smiled back, picking up her home phone and getting ready to dial one of her friends at the hospital. "I still think it's a good idea for you to visit the general hospital, though, to make sure there's nothing—"

"Wait, the hospital?" Zack interjected, suddenly uneasy. "I…I don't think I really need to go to the hospital, really."

Aerith blinked. "Zack? You fell through a weatherproofed sheet of glass. I think that a little treatment – or at least a check-up – at the hospital would be in your best interest."

"I'd really prefer not to," Zack said forcefully, his face pale but determined.

Aerith made a little sound of disbelief, her movements slowing as she turned to look at him. He suddenly seemed quite uncomfortable, more so than when he had first assessed his injuries.

Aerith sighed. She knew that patients brought forcefully to the hospital generally tended to reap more trouble than benefit from visiting. He also looked older than eighteen; even if she made him go, he'd probably just sign himself out against medical advice anyway. But she couldn't very well just let Zack leave; he still needed some sort of supervision for his concussion, especially if he planned on hazarding the roads.

Aerith approached Zack again, sliding to sit next to him on the bed. "Well, if you are really opposed to visiting the hospital, at least let me take a closer look at you. I am a qualified doctor, so I suppose technically my word is as good as any medical professional's."

Zack's relief was evident on his face. "You don't know how thankful I am, 'Rith. I – I really owe you one."

"'Rith?" _Already nicknamed me, huh?_ Aerith thought, feeling strangely happy but still shy at his easy familiarity. "Well, I figured that you'd just check yourself out of the hospital if you really wanted to, so…at least this way I know you're somewhat safe."

She moved to the bathroom, found her first-aid kit, and came back into the bedroom with a pair of latex gloves on and the kit in hand. "Okay, then, Zack. Shirt off, please."

Zack obediently pulled off his turtleneck, wincing as he did so. Freed from the fabric, he rolled his shoulders and his neck.

"All right, now try to stay still. But if it hurts too much, just say so, okay?" Aerith rapped off, the lines coming almost automatically after hundreds of repetitions.

Zack nodded, the tension showing in the muscles of his neck. Aerith grimaced sympathetically as she surveyed his back. _Multiple lacerations all across the latissimus dorsi; glass still stuck in the wounds…this is going to hurt no matter what I do._

Aerith picked up the tweezers and reached for the first cut.

And then froze.

"Doc, what's wrong?" Zack finally asked after three or four seconds of agonizing silence.

At his prompting, he felt the gentle touch of her fingers on his back – but there was something different about the touch. A warmth spread from the tips of contact, feeling…soothing somehow. Curing. As if somehow she was healing him with touch alone…

Zack craned his neck over his own shoulder to see what Aerith was doing. It certainly didn't seem like anything special; she was, in fact, just tracing her fingers along his back. But then what was that strange feeling…?

And then Zack met her eyes.

All human traces had vacated those beautiful green orbs. Instead a deep, profoundly peaceful glow inhabited her irises, flickering like a flame in time with the soothing waves that spread across his back, down his arms, and through his entire body. His skin and muscle was visibly knitting back together again, pushing out the shards of glass and seamlessly rejoining even as he watched.

Zack stared, mesmerized.

She's one of us. She's like Yuffie and Reno and me.

"…Aerith?"

His gentle murmur was enough to jerk her out of her trance. She instantly withdrew her hands, clutching them close to her chest. A deep yet dull ache grumbled in his body, but it was considerably diminished than what it had been before.

"Oh – oh I am so, so sorry – I just didn't expect that – " Aerith squeaked, blushing furiously.

"No!" Zack exclaimed, his excitement growing. "No, no, I mean – I mean, that's fine, that's okay – I know, I'm – I'm like you, see?"

Zack reached out, and, in his eagerness, sent an uncontrolled blast of electricity through the nearby lamp.

The lamp began to whine, its pitch reaching higher and higher until finally, with a last gasp, the bulb popped. It blew tiny fragments of hot glass in every direction that disintegrated even as they flew, the bits and pieces stinging across Zack's bare arms.

Zack yelped, rubbing fervently at the new little wounds opened along his biceps and forearms. He grinned sheepishly at Aerith, who, thankfully, was not injured and rather curiously examining the holes burned through the fabric of her nightgown.

"Eh…sorry about that," Zack apologized with an embarrassed smile. "I think I might have pushed it a little far."

Aerith returned his smile, brushing off the bits of ash and glass. "No harm, no foul."

Zack found himself grinning genuinely back. She had a beautiful smile – one that contained a contagious sort of mirth that invited all the world to smile with her.

"Umm…" Aerith blushed and looked away. She awkwardly kneaded the bedcovers with her left hand and touched her face with the other. "Is there…something on my face?"

"Wha – oh." Zack suddenly felt whatever imaginary romance in the atmosphere disappear as he realized he'd been staring at her for a good minute in total silence. "No, no, no, it's not that, it's just, uh, um—" Zack allowed his gaze to flicker across the room nervously. "I guess I uh…I umm…hit my head harder than I thought!"

Zack wanted to slap himself. And then jump off of a cliff. _Oh, for heavens' sake! I live with Reno and Yuffie, the ultimate-slacker extraordinaires, and this is seriously the best explanation I can come up with?_

And then he spied the littered floor.

"I'll help you clean up the glass!" he practically yelled as he leapt to his self-appointed task.

"Oh—" Aerith hastily tried to stop Zack. "Oh, no, it's okay, really, Zack, you don't have to, I can—"

"Oww," Zack yipped, pouting as his finger bled from a new wound inflicted by a particularly sharp edge of glass.

"—clean it up by myself," Aerith finished with a little sigh. Despite having just met him, somehow she had the feeling that this type of accident happened to Zack quite frequently. She gently reached for his hand. "Here, can I take a look?"

Zack hesitated before extending his arm to her. She wrapped his hand in her strong yet delicate ones – and again, that soft green light darted out from Aerith's palm and her emerald irises seemed to reflect some deep, universal reservoir of human goodness…

_She's so…beautiful,_ Zack thought, dumbfounded. He barely noticed as the skin sealed itself again, and as the minor pain from his cut ebbed away, Zack opened his mouth to speak…

And then the entire wall imploded.

Zack covered Aerith to the best of his ability in his injured state with what little forewarning he'd had, flinging his arms around her protectively. They were both blown backwards by the blast nonetheless as something – or perhaps someone – made its grand entrance into what remained of her room.

Zack felt himself flying through the air for the second time that day. His shoulder blades slammed – hard – into the wall behind him, and all of his oxygen left him in a huge huff. To his relief, Aerith rammed into his ribs shortly thereafter (also for the second time that day), reinforcing his breathlessness but setting his mind at ease. It wouldn't do for a lady to be injured on his account.

Although the whole chivalrous-knight-in-shining-armor was really beginning to weigh on him. He was pretty sure his poor ribcage had been bruised at some point in the distant past – though he couldn't tell for sure. There was the one bright side to being hammered multiple times in the same spot: after a while, pain and nothingness became one and the same.

At least for a while.

He coughed as the dust and splinters settled. Zack felt some form of guilt stirring in the back of his dazed mind. _Wow. She's not just gonna need a new skylight after this – she's gonna need a new house._

Zack's brow wrinkled as his brain rebooted. _Wait…but this time I didn't do anything. I know I didn't. I was just…trying to pick up the glass…_

His brow furrowed further as his memory returned piece by piece. _Then why…?_

Zack tensed as he heard a low, relaxed chuckle and the distinct creak of shoes on wood. He held Aerith tighter, registering thankfully that she was breathing – although her even breaths suggested unconsciousness. Somewhere behind the diminishing curtain of dust, leather snapped in the wind and metal clinked.

_Someone's here,_ Zack thought disbelievingly. _But this is a two-story house, and we're on the second floor…then how—?_

"Target is in sight," said a tall figure quietly in a masculine tone as it stepped into the house. Zack could make out a bizarre ensemble of metal armor, leather clothing, and some type of high-grade cloth hugging a slender frame. It looked faintly military and left the chest bare but for two straps that x-ed over his skin and continued to encircle the shoulders. Long, silver – _silver?_ Zack was utterly baffled – hair rippled around the man's face, a shimmering waterfall that fell all the way down his back.

And in the intruder's leather-clad hand lay the longest, rapier-slim blade Zack had ever seen in his entire life.

_That thing,_ thought Zack blearily, half certain that his mind was making things up, is ridiculous. _Nobody could possibly think to actually use that stupid sword in this day and age, right?_

Then that 'stupid sword' swung around until it nestled under Zack's chin – right at his jugular. And the steel of the sword felt very cold and all too real as it lightly touched his skin.

Some small part of Zack was screaming that this was impossible, that he was dreaming the whole thing and that any minute Yuffie would bodily kick him off of the sofa and he'd find himself lying on the carpet amongst discarded popcorn kernels in their apartment. Some small part of Zack refused to believe that any sword could reach over the distance of a whole room and poke him in the neck, even as he felt his pulse beat wildly against the metal of the aforementioned weapon. Some small part of Zack wished that someone would walk out with a video camera and a smile, telling him it was all just a joke.

Sadly, that little part of Zack was captain of the rapidly sinking boat called 'Wishful Thinking.'

"Well, well, well," chuckled that deep, placed voice again, and Zack could suddenly see two oddly luminescent, malachite eyes staring amusedly out at him from the darkness. "What have we here?"

Zack cursed himself for rolling out of bed that morning. He cursed himself for falling asleep while Reno and Yuffie opened the mail, and most of all, he cursed himself for dragging poor Aerith into whatever Pandora's hell he had raised.

Yet as Zack gritted his teeth and prepared for the worst, all he could think was:

Why is it always me?


	3. Chapter III

A/N: Thanks for reading! I'm sorry for the delay between updates, but junior year just beats you down-and then keeps smashing at the bloody pulp for the fun of it. :p On spring break now, so I'll try and update faster! :)

Thanks for your patience! Please enjoy!

* * *

"Who's the big guy?" asked Cameron through a mouthful of potatoes, shaking one of his stray blonde locks out of his cheerful brown eyes.

"Where?" Cloud asked, scanning the lunchroom discreetly. Everyone seemed to be where they usually were: the jocks and the preps, the geniuses and the nerds. All settled comfortably into the little cliques and hierarchies that defined one's high school experience, roosting with those most similar to them.

"I think Cam means that guy over by the door, next to the prep table," replied Quinn helpfully, plowing through his own meal with his usual distracted, peaceable expression.

Cloud followed Cameron's gaze to the specified table. Sure enough, breaking the flock mentality, a rather well-built man sat by himself, looking a tad too old for high school and yet too casually dressed to be a teacher. Donning black cargo pants, a black sleeveless turtleneck, and black combat boots, the man gave off a serious, quiet vibe without falling neatly into the emo group nor the goth clan.

Tom, their unspoken ringleader, spared the man in question a quick appraisal. "Kind of weird for him to be sitting alone like that, huh? Doesn't seem quite like a student but doesn't seem quite like a teacher, either."

"True that," seconded Winston with a drawl, tossing a tater-tot up into the air and catching it in his mouth. "But who cares? He doesn't seem t'be botherin' anybody."

"No, but it does seem like somebody's about to bother him," Cameron said, an uncharacteristic frown appearing on his face.

They all turned to look this time. One of the more popular jocks – a particularly bold and aggressive one nicknamed 'Bear' for his size – had left his groupies and was now heading along a beeline towards the stranger. The whole lunchroom noticed the social break in protocol within seconds, and the room grew strangely quiet as Bear drew closer to the man in all black.

"Christ," Winston swore under his breath, his brow furrowing. "Can't those meddling preps jus' leave a man to eat his lunch in peace?"

"Well, it is Bear, after all," Quinn noted dryly, but even he had managed a look of faint concern.

Cloud felt an impending sense of dread – as did the rest of the room's occupants. They all unconsciously drew closer to one another as the scene unfolded, sensing that something was amiss…

A piercing pain abruptly lanced up his neck and jabbed at his brain. Cloud felt his eyes grow watery at the unexpected agony and gripped the table tightly as his sense of balance went haywire. As an uncomfortable pressure built at his temples, Cloud squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the world as it dissolved into bizarre, slurred splotches of color.

He started to panic, one hand completely covering the left side of his face in an attempt to hide his fear. _What the hell? This has happened before, but it's never hurt…not like this!_

Through misty eyes, Cloud noticed Tom's concerned expression turn towards him.

"…Clou…?" _Why does he sound so far away? He's sitting right next to me –_ "Cloud, are…feeling…okay?"

Then, suddenly:

_– perfect. I'll show this emo kid who's really the boss in this lunchroom. After all, we can't risk having some sort of weird revolt from the emos or anything; putting that down would just be a waste time that could have been spent on the football field – typical human. Always trying so hard to show off, never given a moment's peace simply because he needs the attention. The child should consider himself lucky that Genesis isn't here. After all, at least I'll leave him alive; if the child tried this with Genesis, he'd probably have been decapitated the moment he looked at him –_

Cloud couldn't help a quiet, sharp intake of breath as he returned to his own consciousness with a dizzying speed. _What the hell was that?_ Cloud stared at the stranger with a new sense of horror. If that's what he's really thinking…

"Cloud?" Tom repeated. He'd definitely noticed Cloud's momentary lapse in…well, his lapse in existence. "Are you feeling okay?"

Cloud didn't bother explaining. It would sound insane to anybody, he knew that – but at the very least, he could save Bear before something really bad happened. He turned to the two of them, half-rising out of his chair.

And then a gloved hand gently but very firmly pressed down on Cloud's shoulder, forcing him back into his seat.

"I think it would be prudent…" A soft voice accompanied the touch, but Cloud somehow knew not to turn and look directly at the speaker. "…to stay out of this particular fight, hmm?"

Tom was staring over Cloud's shoulder at the speaker with a profoundly confused expression. Cloud was highly tempted to turn and look, but some sixth sense told him it was better to keep staring straight ahead.

A spark of conflict between Bear and the stranger suddenly recaptured the room's undivided attention.

"I already explained to you that this is my territory," Bear growled, obviously at the end of his short patience as he cracked his knuckles ostentatiously. "These are my rules, and you play by them or you leave."

"My, my, was that a threat?"

All eyes snapped to focus on a spot directly behind Cloud's seat, and he finally turned around to look at the random interloper with the soft dove-tone.

This stranger wore even more bizarre clothing than the one that sat so nonchalantly before Bear. Black and red leather dominated his entire outfit, topped off by an epaulette-bearing red leather trench coat and a pair of black combat boots. Reddish-russet hair barely brushed his shoulders and fell into his feline-green eyes in long, slightly wavy strands. His delicate features stopped a hair's breadth from femininity, balancing out his broad shoulders and impressive height.

And, to Cloud's astonishment, in his right hand the stranger casually carried an elegant, red-and-white steel broadsword.

"Genesis," said Bear's mild-mannered opponent in a faintly chastising tone. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. He's still a child."

Bear bristled at that, misinterpreting kindness for pity. But before he could voice his protests, 'Genesis' cut in:

"Not a child, a young adult. And as such, he should really take credit for his actions, wouldn't you agree?" Genesis's clever eyes glittered, and Cloud noted the black-gloved hand tighten minutely on the hilt of the blade.

As unobservant as ever, Bear took Genesis's words as a challenge. Bear's expression darkened as he raged, "Why, you – "

"Genesis," came the admonishing voice again, this time more insistently.

Annoyance flickered across the Genesis's face before he rolled his luminous green eyes. "Oh, come on, Angeal. The boy's asking for a fight – and I am kindly willing to provide one. It'll make everyone happy: he gets his fight, the spectators get a show, and I get another victory – what's there to lose?"

It took Bear only two seconds to react to the insult. Abandoning all forms of rational conversation, Bear roared and ran at Genesis.

Genesis refused to budge so much as an inch as Bear charged, his eyes half-closed as if sleepy, his sword loose at his side. Cloud shrank back from the inevitable collision, sliding away from Genesis discreetly. Unfortunately, in doing so, Cloud briefly attracted Genesis's attention, and for an instant Cloud locked his own summery-blue gaze with that viper-green one…

_– the boy actually charged; he's more foolish than I thought. No doubt Angeal will stop me before I have any real fun, but any action is welcome after two whole weeks of sitting and waiting for the new Chevalier to show up – stupid boy, he'll get himself killed if he keeps baiting Genesis like that – the hell are these people? Wonder if they're transfer students or new professors here –_

And then, suddenly, out of the usual chaos emerged a simple yet dominating image of a white cat. Feline paws, silvery claws fully extended; needle-point teeth bared in – a growl? Or a smile? Drowsy blue eyes widened, their deeper-than-black slit-pupils dilating rapidly as they focused on him and swallowed him whole –

– _I…see…you –_

"Cloud!"

At the sharp bark, Cloud returned once more to his senses with an unceremonious jerk, his arms automatically flailing outwards as he realized he was suspended mid-fall. His hand painfully clipped the edge of the lunch table but failed to find any traction, and he crashed to the ground backwards in a confused heap.

Any other time, Cloud would have heard immediate peals of laughter burst forth from his classmates as he peeled himself off of the tile. But something was very wrong, and there was merely a suspenseful silence as he winced at the new bruises on his hands and looked up.

Bear lay motionless on the floor, his elbow at an odd angle, eyes closed in unconsciousness. The red-haired newcomer – _Genesis, was it?_ – had one boot planted on Bear's back and his blade half-raised in his left hand; the dark-haired newcomer appeared to be in the process of stopping him, having procured a positively gargantuan blade from thin air to intercept Genesis's. His peers all had mixed looks of fright, shock, and morbid fascination on their faces as they drew back from the conflict.

But everyone was frozen in place now, startled by Cloud's loud and epic plummet to the ground. The bizarre tableau lasted for a few impossible moments as everyone stared at Cloud.

_Whoa…what happened? Just how long was I out?_ Cloud felt a rising sense of horror.

_Am I completely losing my mind?_

And then Genesis's wide, viper eyes narrowed and shattered the illusion of stillness.

Cloud barely had time to register a blur of red streak across the room and a forceful jerk to his neck before finding himself face-to-face with Genesis, Cloud's collar caught in Genesis's fist, half-hoisted off of the ground.

Those unnervingly green eyes bored into his. "What did you see?"

Cloud was utterly bemused. "Wh-wha—?"

"What did you see?" Genesis repeated, and Cloud swore he saw flames flicker in those vividly colored orbs, some internal, inextinguishable flame that fueled Genesis's unnatural strength…

"I – I saw…I saw a cat," Cloud said, too stunned to lie. Genesis's silence prompted him further. "I…it was a white cat – white, with silver paws – I mean, claws – and…and…"

"And blue eyes that feel like they're nailing you down?" offered a quieter, solemn voice. The other newcomer – Angeal, that was his name – stood next to them, his calm blue eyes wise and peaceful.

Strangely, although Cloud had to struggle to remember what its eyes looked like physically, Cloud perfectly recalled every last detail of their gaze.

"…Exactly like that," Cloud affirmed with a touch of wonder in his voice. "As if…as if you were a butterfly, and someone's hand was pinning you to a board…"

Genesis opened his hand and let Cloud fall back to the tiles. "So it's not this one, either," he mused cryptically, leaving his previous opponent entirely forgotten. "How irritating."

"But he saw the cat, too," Angeal reminded. "That cat's been showing up more and more frequently, and not just to anyone – you saw how it affected only the Chevalier, starting with the most sensitive. This boy could be a Clair."

Genesis showed a split second of hesitation at Angeal's warning before scoffing. "Angeal…"

"I think it would be best to keep an eye on this one," Angeal elaborated patiently, nodding at Cloud. "He could turn out to be the one we're looking for."

"Or we could end up chasing useless leads for another six months," Genesis complained. "Let's just clean up and leave, Angeal. The boy will be more trouble than he's worth. Aside from all of that, he doesn't even look like a Chevalier."

"Genesis." This time Angeal's voice brooked no argument.

"Oh, very well then, if you insist," Genesis sighed as he turned to Cloud again. That conversation had been entirely unintelligible to Cloud, and judging by the looks on the others' faces, it had been the same for all of his classmates.

Despite the calm benignity in Angeal's eyes, Cloud still couldn't help but feel threatened by the man's solid frame. As if sensing his fear, Angeal smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry we can't explain all of this to you now – Cloud, is it?"

"A dreamy name for a dreamy boy," Genesis commented, twirling the grip of his sword dangerously in skilled hands. "Our little scuffle was not exactly what you could call 'quiet', and Cloud still managed to drift off into oblivion."

"Genesis," Angeal said, more weary than chastising. "Not helping."

"Swiftly, then, my friend," Genesis replied, sheathing his broadsword and crossing his arms. He still seemed subtly restless as he fixed Cloud with that bright green gaze.

Angeal turned back to Cloud with another sigh. "Again, I do apologize for the confusion. You will be informed later, I promise."

'_Will' understand?_ Clearly they intended on whisking Cloud away somewhere – an idea that, considering the violent nature of these people's thoughts, inspired a new sense of dread in Cloud.

Cloud gathered his feet under him to rise. "I don't think I want to – "

"For the greater good," Angeal and Genesis said in unison as the former reached out and tapped Cloud's forehead before he could react.

That tap, that light touch, sent Cloud tipping backwards, off-balance, his eyes suddenly heavy with sleep. He felt the length of his elbow, quickly followed by his entire arm, make contact with the floor as his mind shut his body down forcefully. Fatigue set in, bone-deep and tempting as his eyes flickered.

"I don't…understand…" Cloud muttered, using every ounce of his rapidly diminishing concentration to force out the words. His entire body had successfully declared mutiny, and he now had to struggle to keep his attention focused on the faces above him. "Who…are…"

"Sleep," Angeal – or Genesis? It was getting hard to tell – commanded gently. "You'll understand."

And Cloud gratefully obeyed.

...

Angeal suppressed a huff of exertion as he readjusted the body slung over his shoulder. _How on earth did I manage to carry him while we were escaping from the school? The kid's no lightweight_, he thought as his arm began to complain.

"Are you coming or not, Angeal?"

Angeal sighed and hurried his last few steps to fall into stride with Genesis. "He's heavier than he looks."

"Mmm," Genesis replied in his usual, directionless manner, his nose stuck in a small, leather-bound book, neither offering to help nor outright snubbing.

"'Loveless' again, Genesis?" Angeal asked, a little smile on his face as he recognized the well-loved white book. "I've lost track of how many times you've read that play."

"It's a classic," Genesis said in reply, closing the book and looking up at Angeal. "A true work of art. How's the child?"

"Heavy, but otherwise he seems to be peaceful enough. It seems that the cat cannot extend its paw into the realm of dreams quite yet," Angeal replied.

"And what exactly is your opinion on the cat, Angeal?" Genesis queried, seeming only vaguely interested. His intense eyes belied his focus. "It first appeared to the Clairs only a month ago, and yet it seems to haunt all of them now. They're not as…lackadaisical as they once were, don't you think?"

Angeal nodded as best as he could with the body draped over his shoulder. "It is strange. A natural psychic disturbance should affect even non-sensitives, but judging by the way the cat terrorizes just Clairs…it seems too directed to be random. Too…human."

"Mmm," Genesis responded again mysteriously.

"Perhaps it's another Chevalier unconsciously releasing negative energy," Angeal hypothesized, spurred by Genesis's silence. "It would explain why only the Clairs are affected."

"But it seems unlikely that unconscious feelings could coalesce into such distinct forms. Claws, teeth, eyes – they all require intention and effort to form. Nobody, not even a Senior Clair, is capable of producing such clear images without some measure of focus," Genesis volleyed, sounding more contemplative than argumentative.

"How else can we explain it?" Angeal suggested with a shrug, the uncomfortable weight on his shoulders inhibiting any further higher cognitive processing. "The only other possibility is that one Clair is specifically broadcasting to a single category of sensitives across the globe."

"And no Clair has that kind of power," Genesis finished, acknowledging Angeal's argument even as he completed it. "Hmm. Curious."

"Curious," Angeal agreed. "It's likely we'll find the origin of the psychic disturbance soon. It's attracted the attention of more and more Clairs as it has grown more powerful. With all of them hunting for the same thing, it will only be a matter of time now until they find the source."

"It's a small world," Genesis mused. "Especially for Clairs. I'm sure they'll figure it out sooner rather than later."

"What kind of Clair do you think Cloud is?" Angeal queried, purely to distract himself from his strenuous exertions to stay upright. "Just judging from what you've seen so far, of course."

"I'd say a well-directed empathizer," Genesis replied. "He also seems to have a decent Gift in telekinesis, even if he's shown no proficiency in the matter thus far."

"I know what you mean," Angeal said. "Telekinesis would fit him. Either way, if he's powerful enough to pick up on the psychological nuances already, he won't be an Undecided for long."

"Hmm," Genesis conceded as they finally approached a little, run-down motel that looked as if it were on its last legs. The roof sloped, unwilling to support its full weight; sodden wooden fences sagged. Genesis's fine features wrinkled. "Who chose the rendezvous point again?"

"Lazard did," replied Angeal dryly.

"I should have known. Sephiroth has taste; I have style," Genesis mused, disdain seeping into his voice as he walked into the parking lot towards a sleek, tinted-window, black Lexus RV. "And you, Angeal, though perhaps not quite as discerning, have sense at the very least." Genesis opened the door for Angeal, still talking. "Honestly, who chooses a place like this as the meeting point for Shinra's 1st Class SOLDIERS?"

Angeal grunted as he hefted the blonde teen onto the beige leather backseat. "At least we have legroom this time, huh, Genesis? Last time they provided us with a car, your elbow was digging into my ribs the whole ride there."

"Again, poor judgment on their part," Genesis provided simply as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs. With expert movements, he cuffed Cloud to the back of the front passenger seat.

Angeal and Genesis took a step back and looked at their handiwork. Unconscious, one arm anchored to one of the car seats, long legs barely fitting within the threshold of the car, Cloud sprawled across the backseat, his breathing smooth and easy.

"They all look so peaceful at the start," Angeal sighed. "Before they really learn their roles as Chevalier, anyway."

Genesis hummed his agreement. "Yes, they certainly do, even if it is only for a moment."

Angeal shut the door before moving around and climbing into the passenger's seat up front. Genesis fished a pair of car keys from his pocket and followed suit.

"We'd better get going," Angeal commented lightly, tapping the glowing green numbers on the control panel as the engine purred to life. "Sephiroth will catch up later, no doubt."

"Mmm. That, and the fact that I'd rather take a frown from Sephiroth rather than a lecture any day," Genesis yawned nonchalantly, throwing the car into reverse. "Well, then. Time to visit our favorite Turk."

"Did you hear about the new complex Shinra has been building?" Angeal mentioned off-handedly as Genesis pulled out of the parking lot. "There's been quite a bit of rumor surrounding its construction."

"Where there are people, there are rumors," Genesis answered, supremely uninterested. "As long as they don't affect me directly, I could care less."

Angeal grinned at Genesis's candor. "Let's go home, Genesis."

"Indeed." Genesis pressed on the gas and they began their journey home, their new recruit, unaware and alone, in tow.

…Yet even in his unconsciousness, Cloud's eyes flickered nervously behind their lids, tracking bits and pieces of that strange white cat…

_I see you._

…

Zack dared not move a muscle. The steel resting under his chin seemed real enough, chilly and tempered to a razor-thin edge. _But steel is metal,_ Zack reminded himself, regaining some form of self-control as he forced himself to think. _And I can effectively neutralize metal, just like those handcuffs. All I need to do is calm down…_

Cautiously, Zack reached out to the metal with his gift, searching for the tell-tale hum of electrons responding to his call…

And found nothing. Not so much as a peep of the electrical charges that flowed through every electron of every atom of every bit of matter in the universe. Zack blinked, surprised. _What the hell is this sword made of? Without electrons, neutrons, protons…this thing shouldn't even physically exist._

"I admit, you're an interesting one," the angelic form in the windowsill murmured, one dark eyebrow raised. "I would not have considered tossing the bomb out of the window."

Zack said nothing, instead focusing on not going cross-eyed while still carefully monitoring the sword dimpling his neck. Then again, what exactly was one supposed to say to a party-crashing, lone-gunman-style swordsman in the 21st century, anyway?

"In any case, you pass," the creepy stranger declared abruptly, lowering his sword (much to Zack's relief). "You're resourceful, talented, and obviously intelligent. It seems Director Lazard was correct in selecting you for SOLDIER."

_SOLDIER…?_ Zack frowned. _As in my thief name? Are these guys after the Hope Diamond?_

"…I'm not from the government, if that's what you're wondering," came the amused statement as the man stepped forward gracefully off of the windowsill and onto the floor. "I'm afraid I'm not good enough to suffer and be one of those poor government lapdogs."

Zack took a closer look at his aggressor as he approached. The man actually had a rather affable face, with a wry smile and half-closed, feline eyes. It was the hair that threw Zack – that long, silvery waterfall that rippled distractingly with every step.

"It seems I've thrown away my manners in all the excitement," the stranger said with a tone of genuine apology, his slow steps coming to a stop at Zack's outstretched (and throbbing) leg. "I am Sephiroth Masamune, SOLDIER First Class, serving as official recruiter for the SOLDIER division of Shinra Industries, Inc."

Zack stared at him incredulously, for a moment forgetting the rapier in Sephiroth's hand. "…Shinra, Inc.?"

Sephiroth gave a gracious dip of his head in affirmative.

"As in the electric company turned military-tech powerhouse?" Zack pressed further, his confusion evident. "How do they have anything to do with…?"

Sephiroth smiled, and it was a pleasant smile – faintly amused, maybe, but still amiable. "That will all be explained in much further detail by our coordinator later should you choose to join SOLDIER."

"Director Lazard?" Zack hazarded, dredging his blurry memory and trying to keep this 'Sephiroth' talking. The longer he kept that sword lowered, the better.

"Yes, actually." Sephiroth raised an eyebrow, apparently impressed. "I only mentioned Director Lazard once, and yet you remember. You would make a fine SOLDIER recruit."

"What exactly…is SOLDIER?" Zack queried cautiously. If this was really a good deal that Shinra was offering…well, even though thieving was fun, all thieves got caught eventually. It was just a matter of time before Reno, Yuffie, or he slipped up…and then all of their lives would disintegrate from there. But if they could secure decent-paying jobs at Shinra? Oh, the possibilities…

"You could call it a privately-owned, privately-managed paramilitary group," Sephiroth answered after a brief period of thought. "It handles all of Shinra Inc.'s…dirtier issues. It's a quiet force, but a well-respected one. And you will want for no material goods with the SOLDIER pay."

_There it is,_ Zack thought. _The dealbreaker. 'Want for no material goods,' huh? Hmm…_

And then Zack remembered the poor, unconscious doctor still draped over his shoulder.

"Actually," Sephiroth commented curiously as he, too, seemed to note (with a politely small amount of confusion) the other person in the room. "May I inquire as the nature of this…other party?"

Zack craned his neck to peer at Aerith's face. Long lashes curled shut over those emerald eyes, Aerith seemed alright – her pulse thudded strongly where her wrist had flopped over his; her breathing was deep and unhurried. He felt a slight blush rise to his cheeks and an unsolicited protectiveness stirred within his heart. _She's…pretty…_

And for some reason, Zack did not want to get her mixed into Shinra business. He cleared his throat. "She's just – she just happened to be there when I…when I fell."

Sephiroth raised a silver brow. "Oh, really."

Zack nodded firmly.

"And why should I trust your word again?" Sephiroth mused, the query almost more directed at himself than at Zack.

"I could ask you the same question," Zack said, the corner of his mouth quirking into a wry grin. "Dude, you sent me a bomb in the mail."

Sephiroth's eyes widened for a moment…and then he chuckled. "Touché." Those cat eyes were comfortable again. "I will take your word for truth if you will do the same for mine."

Zack nodded vigorously. "Alright, then. It's a deal." He offered up a hand to shake.

Sephiroth smiled but shook his head. "If you are truly to become SOLDIER, you will learn the standard SOLDIER way of making promises sometime during orientation. As for now, Zack, let us agree upon a mutual verbal oath, shall we?"

Zack shrugged, retracting his hand, and winced at the sore muscles that complained at the movement. "Sounds good to me."

"Very well, then." Sephiroth stepped closer.

"Whoa…" Zack found himself having difficulty focusing on Sephiroth's suddenly expanding frame. "Why are you…"

Sephiroth settled two fingers on Zack's brow, that amused smile still on his face. "So many questions. Sleep for now, Zack Fair. It will become clear to you soon."

Zack tried to open his mouth to complain – _ah, that's not fair, you can't go all mysterious Jedi Master on me now of all times – _but then found that his eyelids weighed, like, a hundred thousand tons and thought maybe he could just rest his eyes for a couple of minutes…

And, for the first time, Zack fell asleep without the lullaby of Reno's sleeptalking or Yuffie's snores, instead breathing cool midnight air, a pretty girl leaning on his arm, all under the soulful, watchful eyes of a one-winged angel.

…

Tifa rested her head against the cool car window. The engine purred powerfully under her as they drove past streets made murky by the tinted glass, just barely disturbing the façade of utter stillness in the air. She welcomed the placid atmosphere, though

"We'll be arriving soon," Wilkins said, interrupting the silence.

Tifa jerked at the sudden sound but quickly recovered herself as she twisted to meet his eyes.

Wilkins continued. "When you arrive at our training facility, pay attention to where you're walking – some of the local residents possess highly unstable or dangerous Genii, and straying from designated safe-zones is a guaranteed way to get yourself wounded or, worst-case scenario, killed. Also, please stay close to your guides during the tour; they serve to protect you and introduce you to the Promontory, and it makes it much easier for them to do their job and ensures your continued safety."

"You're not coming with me?" Tifa regretted the words the instant they left her mouth; even to her own ears, the statement sounded petulant and childish – certainly unbefitting of the avenging angel she strove to become.

But Wilkins shook his head, his smile touched with regret. "I'm sorry, Tifa. House rules – Promontory grounds are off-limits to all external staff until they've been cleared for re-admittance by the Espers."

"Espers?"

"It's the shorthand name for any people with Genii relating to extra-sensory perception – ESP. ESP-ers. Espers." Wilkins absentmindedly ran a hand through his hair as he thought. "There's also…let's see…the Viros – en-_viro_-mentals – who can individually control or manipulate their physical surroundings: elementals, telekinetics, that sort of thing. Then there's the Mass Dynamic group, more commonly referred to as the WMDs—"

"Weapons of mass destruction?" Tifa interrupted doubtfully.

"MDs, or, as the students like to call them, WMDs, possess Genii that influence large areas or groups of people. These Genii can vary pretty drastically; we've got one WMD who's capable of putting over a hundred people to sleep, and another who could send people into such a frenzy that their hearts would burst within five minutes."

Tifa stared and absorbed the information as quickly as she could, suddenly all too aware that her bodily welfare depended upon her ability to remember it later. Wilkins smiled apologetically at the intense expression of concentration. "Tifa…I know it sounds difficult now, but I promise you it gets easier. It's hard to believe, but you'll make friends…and with time, you'll feel way better about this whole thing."

As if on cue, the car rolled slowly to a stop, gravel crunching under its tires.

"We're here."

The car door opened before she could reach for the handle. Tifa cautiously stepped out of the tinted-window, black SUV.

They were parked in the middle of an abandoned parking lot, occupying the pool of light cast by the single streetlamp. Some sort of building stood off in the distance, but only silence and empty asphalt bounded Tifa and Wilkins's little entourage.

"Do you know who they're sending?" Wilkins asked, turning to look at the driver.

"I heard they were sending Red, but I wouldn't take it too seriously," the driver replied dryly, straightening his lapel.

"Why not?"

"Questioning an inebriated Highwind is not exactly what I'd call reliable information reconnaissance."

Wilkins let loose a soft chuckle. "Ah. I see."

Understanding literally nothing of the exchange, Tifa felt highly visible and uncomfortably exposed in the light, as if she were being inspected under a celestial microscope. She suppressed the urge to twitch her head to track every errant movement she _thought_ she saw in the corners of her eyes.

_Calm down…you're psyching yourself out,_ Tifa coached herself, breathing deeply.

"Miss Tifa Lockheart?"

Tifa instinctively homed in at the sound of her name, almost giving herself whiplash as she, along with Wilkins and their driver, spun around to look at the car.

Perched atop the car were two male forms, one standing, arms crossed, the other, smaller one sitting cross-legged, elbows on his knees, torso tilted forward as if to peer more closely down at them. The former was dark-skinned and well-built, broad shoulders and muscled structure wrapped in an unassuming black business suit, complete with patent-leather shoes and leather gloves; his shaven head and sunglasses gleamed even in the weak light of the streetlamp.

The latter was significantly younger – thirteen at most – and physically less robust, his light frame dressed in typical teenager clothing: jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt, and a flannel jacket. His pixie features peeped out from under a mop of untidy light-brown hair, dominated by a pair of wide, intensely violet eyes that seemed to take in everything at the same time.

"Miss Tifa Lockheart?" repeated the younger boy in a clear, polite chirp, fixing that bright, bird-like stare on Tifa.

"Yes?" she finally answered, bouncing her gaze between the boy and the man. _Where did they…how…?_

A smile broke out on the boy's face at her response. In one fluid movement he brought himself to a crouch, braced his arms, and leapt off of the roof of the car onto the ground. Tifa realized how young he really was as he straightened to his 4'9" maximum height.

"It's nice to meet you," he grinned, stepping forward and offering her his hand. Tifa hesitated for a moment before she shook it, surprised by his manners. "…It's nice to meet you, too."

"As you've been informed, Denzel, Ms. Lockheart here is your ward," Wilkins said, nodding at the boy. "Please take care to keep her safe, will you? We don't need a repeat of the fiasco that happened with Tidus."

"He recovered _eventually_," Denzel scoffed, his twinkling eyes belying mischievous glee under his offended voice. "And he even has a pretty girlfriend now, Wilkins. Do you remember Yuna?"

"_Those_ two are a _couple_?" Wilkins said incredulously, his professionalism slipping. Tifa felt the corner of her mouth twitch. For a moment, he'd sounded like any scandalized teenage gossip discussing the latest rumor.

"I know, isn't it weird?" Denzel yipped enthusiastically. "I mean, let's face it, we all know that Tidus is better looking than Seymour, but still—"

The man still standing on the car sighed. Loudly.

"Oh _fine_, Rude, ruin everyone's fun," Denzel grumped, rolling his eyes and pulling a face at the man. Those violet irises focused on Tifa once more. "Party-pooper back there is Rude. Not as in the characteristic 'rude,' as in his name is capital-R-U-D-E—Rude."

Rude maintained an air of offended elegance as he stood impassively on top of the car.

Tifa couldn't help but chuckle at the bizarre tableau before her. Her face felt strange when she did, as if they'd briefly forgotten how to express happiness during her mourning period – but it also felt right, as if she'd been missing something until she'd smiled. Even the anger she'd been nursing was slipping away, and her heart eased as she laughed out loud.

"Whoa…Tifa, are you okay?" Denzel asked as tears started dripping from Tifa's lashes. Tifa couldn't remember when she'd started to cry, but she could feel the wetness on her cheeks as she shook the rest of the mirth out of her system with more and more exuberant laughter.

And Tifa felt more and more that she had the right to smile.

"Yeah…" Tifa wiped away tears, her eyes red, her sinuses stuffy, but smiling a real smile this time. "I'm okay," she said, and actually meant it.

Denzel seemed to hear the new sense of relief in her voice and dispensed another one of his brilliant little smiles. "Good." To her startled astonishment, he stepped up and gave her a swift hug before moving back again to a respectful distance.

"You seemed like you needed it," Denzel said simply, tucking hands in his pockets as she blinked at him, wondering if she'd imagined the gesture. He turned to Rude. "Are we ready, Nightcrawler?"

"Don't call me that," came the deep, rather resigned voice with another sonorous sigh, and Tifa briefly marveled at his lung capacity, capable of such expressive exhalations. "And yes, I am ready. Are you?"

Denzel grinned. "I was born ready," he crowed. "Alright, well, Jenkins, Wilkins, we'll see you later in the Promontory after you've been through the Espers. Tifa, if you'd be so kind as to take my hand?"

Confused, Tifa cautiously took Denzel's outstretched palm—

And felt her entire body jerk forward suddenly, as if Denzel had given a hard tug – but it couldn't have been Denzel's doing, because she was hurtling through a twisting, blurry tunnel through space—

And fell flat on her ass on _top_ of Denzel, coughing and gasping as she tried to regain her breath. Denzel gave a squeaky little 'whuff' underneath her as she knocked the breath from his lungs.

"Oh…wow, I am _so_ sorry," Tifa apologized, rolling off of Denzel. The teen stirred weakly and gave her a thumbs-up.

"It's…fine," he wheezed, sitting up. Denzel fixed a rather unfocused glare at some unknown point over her shoulder. "No…thanks…to you…Rude."

Rude's silence was unmistakably smug.

Tifa suppressed a giggle and planted her hand on the ground, steadying herself as she stood—

And then stopped.

"Umm…" Tifa's eyes were the size of dinner plates once more. "Where exactly…are we?"

Sprawled before her was what appeared to be a huge university complex, complete with intermittent patches of poison-green vegetation and vast, rambling steel-and-glass edifices that stretched for a few miles before ending at the edge of an even more expansive lake. It was neatly sheltered on the west by a mountain; on the east, a grassy open field glimmered in the fading sunset-light before running into a thick line of untouched forest.

"Geographically, we can't tell you until you've been initiated. But it's beautiful, isn't it?" Denzel beamed cheerfully as he came up behind Tifa, dusting the last of the dirt off of his jeans. "Here's your official welcome to the Promontory."

Tifa stared around, searching for some point of reference. Not an inch of the former nighttime parking lot could be seen. "But then…how—?"

"Rude has a Solo Genius," Denzel explained. "He can bend distances in reality to a certain extent, making it easy for him to 'warp' or 'hop' from one place to any other place on the globe fairly quickly. Naturally, taking other people with him takes quite a bit more effort, but Rude is capable of it."

Tifa looked at Rude with renewed awe. Rude responded with a demure, slightly apologetic silence.

"Then…what about you?" Tifa asked, turning to Denzel. "Do you mind if I ask what _your_ Genius is?"

"I am just irresistibly _adorable_," Denzel chirruped with a grin, eliciting an eye-roll from Rude. "But in all seriousness, you'll see later. It'll be pretty obvious when I use it."

Tifa decided not to push the subject. She was quickly finding that even the most innocent queries could open a Pandora's box's worth of issues.

"We should probably start heading down to the Promontory," Denzel yawned as he started strolling towards the buildings. "Park us a little closer next time, Rude. Walking all the way down there gets pretty boring."

Rude fumed. Silently.

Tifa was starting to notice a trend with these two.

But even as Tifa took her first step towards her future and her new home, a low wail sounded in the distance. All three of them stopped, and Denzel and Rude exchanged a quick look.

"Crap," Denzel swore, looking to the sky.

The siren picked up volume and pitch with every passing second. With impossible speed, rain-heavy gray storm clouds rushed to block what little remained of the sun, and in under two minutes, the balmy sunset evening had turned into the windy beginnings of a torrential downpour that drowned out even the siren in the background.

Tifa gaped. "What the – but that's impossib—" A raindrop plopped onto her nose and truncated her statement.

"Rule of thumb around here, Tifa," Denzel shouted as a literal curtain of silvery rain approached rapidly behind them, his hand grabbing hers as he began sprinting to the building. "_Nothing_ is impossible!"

And all three of them made a mad dash for the far-off gleam of the Promontory's entrance, leaving only crushed grass and laughter in their wake.

…

Vincent Valentine was not a fearful man.

He frequently walked into dangerous situations with little to no information on hand, fully aware of the myriad deadly ordeals set forth inherently by his occupation. He'd been shot at (more times than he could count), actually shot (twenty-two times and counting), physically beaten to incapacitation (but that was only three times, and even then it had been in a ten-versus-one back at the academy), verbally menaced by anonymous angry parties (he didn't even try tallying), and generally threatened with bodily harm and death every single day of his career as a Turk.

Again, Vincent Valentine was _not_ a fearful man.

But even Vincent – intrepid, brilliant, focused, creative Vincent – feared visiting the "White Room".

And what an apt name. Walls and ceiling spread with bleached-bone paint and furnished with completely white furniture, the White Room housed yet another pale, beautifully ghostly entity within its untainted walls: Rufus Shinra.

The White Room had been another well-thought-through feature built by President Shinra to accommodate their new, living, breathing trump card. With his weakened immune system and still-healing surgical scars, Shinra the junior required a specifically sterilized habitat in which to rest and recuperate. President Shinra, foreseeing these special circumstances, had built a specified biologically clean environment for the newly code-named "White Prince".

What nobody could have predicted, though, was the amplifying effect of the color white on the White Prince's unusual gift.

The second Vincent had escorted Rufus Shinra – no, not Rufus, he reminded himself, the White Prince – into the White Room, a sharp pang of pain had nailed Vincent squarely between the brows and nearly sent him to his knees. Never once in his hazardous career as a bodyguard had Vincent felt quite such a deep, stabbing pain, as if a corporeal metal rod had been driven into his skull.

Rufus had turned abruptly to meet Vincent's eyes, as if also experiencing the same pain. However, with a moment's worth of observation, Vincent realized that Rufus's expression was not pained but surprised – and curious.

Those bright, glacier eyes were slightly wider than usual as Vincent's own vision hazed and flickered. White and blue yielded to even deeper shades of white and blue until Vincent found himself standing in an endless expanse of white, blinking with surprise, an unusually large, white, blue-eyed cat humming a purr a few feet in front of him.

Vincent stared at the cat. The cat stared back. It was certain – that cat was not just looking at him, it was clearly staring.

And then the cat smiled.

It was a difficult phenomenon to describe: cold eyes half-lidded and oddly defiant, little paws neatly arranged under an elegantly arched, white-furred back, ears perked upwards and canted in mild curiosity, its tail's tip methodically curling into a inquisitive question mark and uncurling, the corners of its lips curved upwards into a slight, enigmatic smirk.

You again.

The cat gave a…well, a very Chesire-cat grin. _[Yes, 'me again', little Valentine.]_

Vincent stared harder at the cat, his eyes shooting a borderline-glare.

So…I wasn't dreaming before. You really are…talking to me. In my head.

The cat twitched its whiskers once and flicked its tail.

_[Yes, you are correct.]_

And this time, hearing that poetic lilt, that velvet-covered stiletto of a voice, Vincent knew for certain.

…And you really are Rufus Shinra.

The cat smiled again and winked. _[As astute as ever, my dear Vincent.]_

Vincent had then discovered himself lying on the floor, sprawled uncomfortably on the entrance hall's hardwood floors, a bruise forming on his cheekbone and his head throbbing.

And, as his vision had slowly returned to its normal focus and coloration, there had been the White Prince, perched on the top stair of the safe house, cloaked in white and sunlight, elbows on knees, head cradled in one propped hand, his cat-eyes drowsy yet watchful with his mouth curled in that sweet, venomous smile.

And then, for the first time, Vincent heard Rufus's actual voice:

"Twenty-seven."

Irrational alarm spread through Vincent, and he had to physically repress a shudder as he hastily regained his feet. Some illogical, unconscious instinct triggered a deep discomfort that prompted him, urged him to stand up and recompose himself before…before something unusual happened.

And by 'unusual', he meant 'undesirable'.

"I'm sorry?" Vincent said.

"Twenty-seven," Rufus repeated, leaning to an even more absurd angle with his head on his hand. "Twenty-seven times I've seen your mask slip since seventy-three minutes ago, Vincent." His eyes narrowed slightly and his smile widened. "I'm disappointed."

To his credit, Vincent kept his cool. "I apologize for disappointing you, but what exactly did you mean by—"

Rufus rolled his eyes. "Come on, Vincent. Don't tell me you seriously expected me not to notice. Whenever I catch you off-guard, you look away for a second before meeting my eyes again. It's only for a moment…but it's there."

Yet Vincent could not resist glancing away again as Rufus's eerily piercing blue eyes wandered over him again. On reflex, Vincent's hand twitched toward his gun.

Rufus noticed and smiled again, that feline grin spreading delicately over his face.

"Planning to kill a god, my dear Vincent?"

To kill a god…

And, standing before the looming white structure with its modernistic steel-and-glass frame and sheer size, Vincent could almost believe that the White Room did indeed house a god. The building had been expensive – approximately two million dollars total – but nothing was spared for the residence of the new and unmatched weapon of Shinra Incorporated.

Vincent approached the skeletal building unwillingly, apprehension coiling in his stomach. He reached out with a hand, typed the passcode, and then stepped forward to present his iris and thumbprint to the biometric security system. Only after he had been thoroughly vetted by the Shinra defense system did the airlock open and admit Vincent into its glowing inner sanctums.

With every step, Vincent grew more and more uneasy. White had never been his favorite color, but now…coupled with…that…

Vincent opened the door into the residing quarters before he could change his mind.

White assaulted his vision, bright and unyielding and unashamed. Only the cool chestnut-brown of the hardwood floors offered any solace to the eye, and even then, in the sunlight, the hardwood reflected the light back to the rest of the room.

Discomforted by his temporary blindness, Vincent hesitated for a moment before calling out:

"Master Shinra?"

As he surveyed the developing scene, Vincent felt the back of his neck prickle. He whipped around, his hand actually coming to rest on the handle of his Valkyrie handgun this time.

The White Prince lounged silently on a long, sunbathed sofa set up on a raised deck, staring Vincent down with an amused smile on his face.

Good morning—

"—Vincent."

An all-too-familiar pain throbbed at Vincent's temples. Dealing with the White Prince's propensity to mix mental projections with actual speech tended to give people headaches, and Vincent was no exception.

"Good morning, Master Shinra." Vincent replied, courteous as ever as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the unnatural brightness of the room. He could barely make out the shape of the White Prince on the sofa. "I've been sent to check how you've been healing."

As his eyes focused, Vincent saw the White Prince slide off of the cushions and stand. "Prodigiously, Vincent. All this white—"

—all this glorious white is healing to mind, body, and soul, don't you agree?

Vincent did not respond immediately. He personally found it eerie, the sheer absence of color in the room.

"I see that you don't," the White Prince murmured as he began descending down stairs to Vincent's level. "That's a shame." As he emerged from the glare of the direct sunlight, Vincent could see more clearly the details of the Prince's silhouette.

The Prince took the last two steps onto the same level as Vincent and stopped a comfortable distance away, just out of reach but close enough for Vincent could make out that laconic, self-satisfied smirk.

Vincent stared. There was something…different about him. Naturally, as time had gone on and the Prince had recovered from the surgeries and his stint of uninterrupted bedrest, he'd bounced back from the paper-white pallor, the muscle atrophy, and the general unhealthy weight loss. But there was something else different about him today – something other than those positive signs of healing.

Something…malevolent.

Is it just me…or his eyes a different color?

"So." The sound of the Prince's voice snapped Vincent's attention back to the situation at hand. He crossed his arms and, brows raised in some sort of expectation, settled those unnerving eyes on him. "I suppose I owe you an explanation."

The random statement caught Vincent off-guard, and he flicked his gaze away from those strange eyes – _dammit, I did it again_. "I'm sorry, I don't follow."

"The cat, Vincent." The Prince said patiently. "The cat, the mind tricks, the hallucinations, the headaches? Weren't you the one seeking enlightenment?"

Vincent blinked. He hadn't had one of those mysterious, pounding headaches in a while – and he'd almost forgotten.

"But before I go divulging secrets with you, let's get something straight, Vincent." The Prince's smile went from animated to…arctic. "Anything and everything I say to you in here, I say with full confidence that you will not repeat a word to anyone else." A raised brow. "Do I have your word?"

Vincent knew there was a correct answer to that question. "Yes."

Rufus's shoulders relaxed minutely. "Good. Now that we're clear – "

– _I can properly explain to you the circumstances of our little engagement. You see, when we first met back in that lab _–

Vincent got a brief mental impression of the room, and for a second he swore he could smell that acrid antiseptic scent in the air; feel stiffly starched sheets press down on his legs and the hated IV faithfully pumping paralyzing poison into his blood; hear the steady, droning hum of the machines; taste those metallic traces that anesthesia and tranquilizers always left souring the mouth—

[[—_Master Shinra…it is now time to awaken_—]]

Vincent blinked and swayed as he returned to reality. He nearly fell over out of sheer disorientation as his body realized it was standing, feeling as if he'd been woken too quickly from a dream.

"If it would please you, sir, please warn me before you do that next time," Vincent coughed. He swore he could still taste that saccharine bitterness of sedatives on his tongue.

"Before you do what?" called a mellow, quizzical voice.

Vincent froze at the sound of the unfamiliar tone and automatically straightened, squaring his shoulders and planting his feet in the proper stance of the Shinra Turks. Only then did he dare turn to see who the newcomer was.

Vincent had to stop himself from staring.

_What's __**he**__ doing here?_

For there, standing at the entrance of the White Room, squinting owlishly into the light, was the newest and mildest-mannered Head of the Science Department in the entire history of Shinra, Inc.: Dr. Reeve Tuesti.

Rufus smirked slyly and flicked a glance in Vincent's direction.

_[[Ah, two men caught alone in a secluded room on Shinra property. What will Public Relations have to say to make this one go away?]]_

_

* * *

_

A/N: Thanks for reading the latest installment of "Chevalier" - if you have any questions or oustanding points on general information, continuity, or even just personal opinions on anything in the preceding text, please feel free to tell me via PM or review! Thanks!

It does my muse good to see a review sitting in my inbox...and also makes me type faster... *hint hint*

Thanks again! :)


	4. Chapter IV

A/N: I am SO sorry for the obscene lack of updates thus far; school sucks and work has overtaken my life.

P.S. – For those of you who've caught on to the arrangement of these chapters, I apologize for the lack of a Rufus-centric section in here. The little Shinra was being pissy and refused to come play with my muse. I blame him.

Relax, and, as always, enjoy!

7/4/11 UPDATE: I AM SO SORRY ABOUT THE VINCENT/TSENG MIXUP! D: Whenever I think Rufus's Best-Buddy-Ever, I think Tseng. Swapping his out for Vincent is difficult, and sometimes I slip up. XD Sorry, guys!

…

Genesis slammed on the brakes _hard_ as they rolled up to the Shinra Complex's entrance gates. Angeal woke with a start at the cut of the seatbelt strap into his shoulder; Cloud's lolling head bounced off of the back of the passenger's seat as he nearly rolled off of the backseat.

"We're here," Genesis observed unnecessarily, faint surprise coloring his voice. Angeal had to suppress the urge to smile. For all his other talents, Genesis had never exactly been a "good" navigator.

"Right," Angeal agreed with a little chuckle as two black-uniformed Shinra security guards strode up to their windows. Both Angeal and Genesis dug out their identification cards from their pockets and presented them to the flashlight-bearing guards.

"Welcome back, Mr. Rhapsodos, Mr. Hewley," the driver's side guard greeted politely, a mechanical smile on his face. He waved a hand forward as the gates to the Shinra Complex began to open. "Please proceed directly to Bunker II to meet Director Lazard."

"Has Masamune returned yet?" Genesis asked as he reclaimed his identification.

"We have not been informed of any other 1st Class SOLDIER arrivals in the past twelve hours," the other soldier replied in almost exactly the same cadence as the first.

"Thank you," Angeal nodded as Genesis began to drive through the gates.

"I'm almost positive that they get less human every year," Genesis murmured without taking his eyes off of the road. "Lazard should really do something to rein in Hojo's experiments."

"I didn't think you cared, Genesis," Angeal replied with surprise, looking at his friend. He smiled. "Feeling a little insecure?"

"Hojo expends too much energy trying to recreate something so very clearly out of his league," Genesis replied, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "Honestly, it's rather embarrassing to observe."

Angeal considered thoughtfully. "So you consider 1st Class as superior to Hojo's creations?"

"At the very least, we have finesse," Genesis replied dryly. "The poor things Hojo likes to create are halflings at best."

"Halflings?"

"They're incomplete," Genesis explicated succinctly, as if the subject needed no further clarification. "In more ways than one."

"Hnn."

His bright green eyes slid over to Angeal, slightly curious. "You know. You've seen it. Surely you remember?"

Angeal remembered – and was trying hard not to. The last time he'd stepped foot into Hojo's lab, even with Sephiroth and Genesis near, he'd felt a sense of profound isolation, of a bone-aching loneliness that didn't subside for days afterwards.

And that was _before_ they'd seen the twisted results of Hojo's failed "experiments."

Angeal pressed his lips together more tightly. That was one memory he'd prefer not to relive.

"When should we drop off this one?" Genesis interrupted, cocking his head at their passenger in the backseat.

"Right." Angeal had almost forgotten. He studied the form. "Should we just take him up with us?"

"I don't see any other options, unless you're up for dumping him on the 2nd Class," Genesis sighed. "The child is really quite a burden."

Angeal grinned. These occasional side comments were the closest thing Genesis ever got to outright whining. "You never did like recruiting."

"A most astute observation," Genesis said sardonically, but his eyes were amused. "Very well, then. We'll take the child with us to our briefing. Maybe he'll make a pleasant meal for the Guard Hounds."

Angeal resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Right, Genesis."

"And you're carrying him."

Angeal sighed. Sometimes there just was no winning.

The sight of unconscious or bloodied operatives was not uncommon in Bunker II of the Shinra Complex. In fact, unless the wound happened to be particularly spectacular, most SOLDIER operatives would simply scoot helpfully to the sides of the halls and allow the injured's team drag him or her to the infirmary without a single backwards glance.

The sight of a civilian, though?

That was a different story.

"Why again do I have to carry the pup?" Angeal growled, shooting a look at a pair of staring operatives. They hurried their pace at Angeal's glare, but never once took their eyes off of the plain-clothed civilian draped over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Because you were the one convinced he's a Clair," Genesis replied absently, his nose buried yet again in 'Loveless.' Angeal privately marveled at Genesis's ability to walk normally _and_ in a straight line without once looking up. Maybe it was a gift granted by his mako-enhanced limbic system.

They both walked into an elevator, Genesis flashed his ID to the keypad, and they were soon on their way up to the top floor where Director Lazard Deusericus looked over the training grounds of all Shinra paramilitary forces.

"Angeal, Genesis."

The amiable voice greeted them with genuine gladness as they stepped over the threshold of Director Lazard's office. Sitting behind the desk was a rather young man with neatly cropped flaxen hair and sagely blue eyes, whose high cheekbones and straight nose stopped just short of handsome.

And bore a remarkable resemblance to the current President of Shinra, Inc.

"Director Lazard," Genesis murmured by way of greeting, but Angeal could practically hear the mental epithet:

President Shinra the Senior's bastard son.

And, unlike most Shinra rumors, it was true, too. Angeal and Genesis were two of the few people in SOLDIER who had actually seen Director Lazard, the mysterious puppeteer who coordinated and approved all SOLDIER operations. Supposedly Lazard had landed the job with his strategical genius and his 175-point IQ and worked under extreme secrecy and anonymity to protect him from any envious rival companies.

But Angeal knew that firstly, there were no rival companies strong enough to strike Shinra without instant and fatal retribution; secondly, that Lazard was naturally a sociable and interactive personality who enjoyed human interaction more than most Shinra Directors; and thirdly, that Rufus Shinra had an IQ of 201, was blind, operated as a placeholder for the position of Vice-President, and _still_ got more publicity than the Shinra SOLDIER Director.

No, no. Director Lazard was shielded from the cameras because he looked _so damn much_ like his father, Shinra Sr. – and even more so because the resemblance between Lazard and the President was stronger than that of Rufus Shinra, the legitimate heir, and the President.

"It's good to see you," Lazard continued warmly, and Angeal was struck yet again by how different Lazard was from his father, even if they shared many of the same facial features. _The man's practically a saint, considering his parentage._

"Mmm." Genesis acknowledged Lazard with the tiniest inclination of the head. Angeal stole a glance at his colleague. Genesis had always disapproved of Lazard, from the moment he met him. There really was no reason for the dissatisfaction – but, then again, since when had Genesis ever needed a reason for _anything_?

Lazard seemed as unaware as ever as he continued smiling benignly at the two of them. "I see you've brought back a guest?"

"Not the one you sent us out for, regrettably," Genesis stated flatly. "The school was a false alarm. The Clairs must have sensed something else there. Whoever is behind the cat remains at large."

"Strange," Lazard said, frowning slightly. "The Clairvoyants are generally quite clear on matters such as these, especially considering their combined power."

"I am told that their Vision has been somewhat clouded lately," Angeal commented.

"That still leaves the question of what exactly the Clairs picked up on, though," Genesis said quietly.

"And exactly what kind of Chevalier is our new recruit?" Lazard asked, drawing out a sheet of paper and a gilded fountain pen.

"Another Clair, though not the one we've been searching for," Angeal replied. "Speaking of which, where should I deposit this one?" For emphasis, he shrugged the shoulder over which the teenager's limp body was draped.

"I have an admission slip for you; you can just hand the boy and the paper to the nearest SOLDIER station and they'll take him from there," Lazard said, finishing the note he'd been writing and signing before folding the sheet once and offering it to Genesis. The red-haired SOLDIER accepted it without comment.

"I suppose we can take our leave?" Genesis said disinterestedly, shifting his weight to his other foot.

"Until we get the next lead from the Clairs, that seems to be our only option," Lazard agreed. He smiled again at the two of them. "Please enjoy your break; you two have been sent out on far too many consecutive missions for my liking, and you deserve some rest."

"Thank you, Director," Angeal cut in before Genesis could take Lazard's words as invitation to complain. Angeal caught a brief, peeved look from Genesis and ignored it. "We'll be in the Barracks if you need—"

The door to Lazard's office practically flew open and a navy-blue someone rushed in, breathlessly gasping:

"We found him!"

Genesis fairly growled.

As oblivious as most of the Shinra Clairvoyants, the courier had eyes only for Lazard, who looked somewhere between astonishment and confusion. The messenger was one of the younger Clairs – eighteen, tops – but retained the same look of distant contemplation as the older Clairs in his tousled hair, wide eyes, and rumpled blue uniform.

He also seemed entirely unaware of the fact that his head was in immediate danger of removal by a certain irritated 1st Class SOLDIER.

"_Genesis_," Angeal admonished as he saw his friend's hand inch over to rest casually on the hilt of that trusty red-steel sword. The little Clair kept right on yapping to Lazard in the background. "It won't do you any good to kill the messenger."

"You fail to take into account emotional and metaphysical welfare," Genesis answered calmly. "I can assure you that my soul would be most soothed by this Clair's decapitation."

Angeal suppressed a chuckle and rolled his eyes before trudging towards the flung-open door. "Don't be overdramatic, Genesis. Come on. Let's go drop the kid off."

Genesis huffed, wheeled on heel, and stalked out of the room. Praying that Lazard was too occupied with the excited Clair to notice, Angeal followed right on Genesis's heels and closed the door behind him.

The silence in the elevator as they rode down to the 2nd-floor lobby attested to Genesis's continued annoyance, and Angeal coughed into his hand to stop from laughing. Genesis's temper was simultaneously a source of constant terror for the lower classes of SOLDIER and a fountain of endless amusement for Angeal and Sephiroth. As Sephiroth had so eloquently stated: "Annoying Genesis is much akin to rubbing a cat the wrong way. If you're unintelligent about it, you'll get scratched or bitten; if you're careful, it's a form of entertainment unmatched by any other."

"You're annoyed," Angeal noted, barely keeping the mirth out of his voice as he shifted Cloud's weight on his shoulders again.

Genesis did not deign to respond to Angeal's comment. "Where's Sephiroth? He should be done by now."

"Good question," Angeal replied, frowning slightly. "Sephiroth generally makes it a point to make it back before us."

Genesis seemed to make up his mind. "He can call us if he's wondering where we are," he decided, turning on heel and heading towards the grand entrance staircase. Angeal started to follow when he heard a momentous "WAIT!"

Genesis kept right on walking, but Angeal turned, contemplating what any SOLDIER could possibly sound so emotional about.

The little Clair from before practically bounced up to Angeal, eliciting a couple of derisive snickers from the surrounding SOLDIERs. His brow wrinkled for a moment in concentration, then smoothed. "Sir – Angeal Hewley?"

Angeal almost asked how the child had known his rarely-divulged last name – and then: _oh, right, Clairvoyant. Duh._

"_Yes_?" Backtracking, Genesis answered for Angeal testily, eyes narrowed to serpent-green slits.

Still ignorant to Genesis's simmering rage, the Clair continued: "SOLDIER Hewley, Lazard has authorized me to request your presence in the Chantry for debriefing on your next assignment."

That was the last straw for Genesis. Angeal could practically feel the 1st Class SOLDIER gathering his otherwise latent Talent to deal the irritating little Clair a quick-and-clean knockout blow.

But then…something happened.

In retrospect, Angeal could only remember sensing a slight twitch from the heavy body hanging over his shoulder before the entire place went to hell. He'd been looking amusedly over at Genesis, not even considering intervention – _because honestly, the kid's a little annoying and Genesis needs to release some stress before he has an aneurysm_ – when Cloud's arm jerked maybe an inch to the left, the muscles contracting involuntarily as the boy woke up.

Nothing ominous, no harbinger of death-and-destruction – just a twitch.

In response, the room exploded.

Or, at least, that's what it felt like. Angeal instinctively hit the ground after hearing the multiple but near-simultaneous explosions, taking Cloud down with him. He automatically took an automatic, defensive crouch, scanning through narrowed lashes, showers of wood, and scintillating dust for the source of the chaos. Prone and eagle-sprawled bodies lay stunned against the walls and strewn carelessly across the carpet like matchsticks spilled from a box.

Only Genesis stood untouched by the blast, still upright – if somewhat wider-eyed than usual – as SOLDIERs slowly came back to life around them, shaking off shell-shock and racing to execute the intruder drill as they'd been so meticulously trained to do.

"Genesis, what the hell is going on?" Angeal coughed, rising from his haunches to a higher kneeling position, eyeing the surroundings carefully once more with enhanced vision.

"I…" As Genesis halted, Angeal looked up in alarm. It was disconcerting – no, downright _wrong_ to hear glib Genesis at a loss for words.

Genesis had an unfamiliar look on his face as he slowly lifted his gloved hands under his eyes' scrutiny; eyes round, face blank, not a hint of his characteristic serenity on his face. Angeal squinted and turned his head a little, trying to puzzle it out. _Horror? Anger? I can't quite put my finger on it…_

Genesis closed his fingers into his palms and continued staring at his fists – in terror, Angeal finally realized.

And then it hit Angeal.

In _terror_?

"Genesis…" Angeal's voice hung heavy with concern. "Genesis, are you alright?"

Genesis opened his hands again, but never took his eyes off of them, as if afraid of what they might do of their own volition if he looked away. "Angeal…"

Angeal could feel Cloud starting to stir weakly at his feet, could even hear the muffled, bemused "_wha?_" issued forth from the teen's lips, but ignored it and focused on his colleague, growing exponentially more concerned with every silent moment. "Genesis…what's wrong?"

Genesis closed his fists once more and dropped them to his side.

"Angeal…" A forcefully steadied green gaze and a carefully composed mask settled back into place on Genesis's features. "I think…"

The silence, broken only by the wail of sirens of the intruder alarm and scuffling boots, stretched to a painful extent. "I think that _that_ – what happened just now…"

Green eyes met blue.

"…I think that was me."

…

Yuffie and Reno existed in a constant, comfortable state of harmonious discord. Like peanut butter and jelly, ketchup and mustard. The two of them argued heatedly _every-single-day_ about everything and anything – the best flavor of pancakes, the coolest way to die (that argument had gotten disturbingly gruesome), the most entertaining drinking game, the worst movie. Anything that could be, in any way, even _vaguely_ construed as opinionated – they fought over.

Except this.

"Reno."

"…Yeah?"

"Did Zack…did he actually just – ?"

" – Take a swan dive out of that window? Yeah."

"…And…and that envelope…it was…was it actually carrying—"

" – An honest-to-God Shinra-grade, kickass bomb?"

"Well?"

"…Yeah."

Yuffie and Reno both stared at the shredded, glass-coated room, the gaping window through which their Third Musketeer had just flown, and the dizzying drop just beyond, and for the first time, they (silently) agreed.

They needed to find a new profession.

Reno swore hotly once before hopping out of his chair and racing around the room, collecting their most valuable essentials and hurling them haphazardly in the general direction of a crumpled duffel in the corner.

"Reno!" Yuffie trailed behind in Reno's path of destruction as he dug for their stash of false IDs under a pile of dirty laundry. "RENO. What are you _doing_?"

"Think about it, Yuff," Reno said, hurriedly throwing the Ziplock at their bag and zipping over to the kitchen drawer for their lockpicks. "Whoever sent that bomb had the brains to study our apartment first, the means to buy a lethal, high-grade Shinra explosive, and then the guts wrap it all up with a neat little bow and deliver it right to our front door."

"Your point being…?"

"Whoever wanted us dead, wanted us dead badly," Reno finished, now rooting under the sofa for their police radio monitoring gear. "If they took this much time and effort to kill us, I'm pretty sure they're also going to demand some proof of our grisly demise. And I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure we're two short on charred black skeletons."

Yuffie wrinkled her nose. "Did ya have to say it like that?"

"Oh, sorry, two well-done corpses broiled in their own rich, tangy _toupet de sang_, with a little—"

Yuffie made another disgusted noise but began helping Reno scoop up their belongings.

Halfway through their frantic packing, Yuffie stopped abruptly in the middle of the room, her eyes huge. Reno nearly ran into her and instead crashed to the ground with a grumpy _oof_.

"What the hell, Yuff?" he grumbled.

"But what about Zack?"

"If he's alive, we can contact him as soon as we're outta here," Reno answered, starting for the bag again. "He knows our numbers and he knows we have tracking devices; he can call us from any pay phone—"

"When."

Reno's brows furrowed.

"_When_ he contacts us," Yuffie insisted quietly, her frown adamant.

Reno slowed, and his sharp, cynical eyes softened. "…Yeah. My bad. _When_ he contacts us."

Yuffie recovered from her momentary melancholy and scowled. "I am _so_ going to kick his sorry ass!"

"…Quite an interesting trio you make. Almost Three Musketeer, if I might indulge an abundantly overused cliché."

Yuffie and Reno automatically whirled at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, Reno's hand already half-curled in preparation to throw fire, Yuffie's legs tensed and ready to flee at a moment's notice.

"My, what fast reflexes you have," murmured the silver-haired angel in their midst, an arm and a leg braced against the edge of the window, viridian eyes smoldering faintly in the night.

"All the better to beat you with, my dear," Reno snorted, coaxing a flame to life in the palm of his hand.

"Pyrokinetic, I see," the stranger said, his voice interested rather than horrified. Reno felt a chill run down his spine. Something about the unruffled placidity of the intruder set him on edge even more than usual – as if he knew something important, something absolutely crucial, that neither Reno nor Yuffie did. "Relax. I'm not here to fight."

Reno snorted and Yuffie stared pointedly at the impossibly long-bladed katana clutched in his left hand. "Right. 'I come in peace, never mind the big-ass sword I'm waving around'."

The man looked faintly surprised as he looked down at his hand, as if he'd forgotten its weight in his hand. "Hmm. Good point."

Reno rolled his eyes. "Whatever. We've got places to go, people to rescue, the whole nine yards. So please get out of the way before we have to do something really dras—"

The stranger took a single step off of the sill and into the room.

Taken by surprise, Reno released the carefully controlled firebomb cradled in his palm, and flame leapt forward in hair-trigger response, turning every inch of the room white with its luminescent glory…

…

Whack.

Rude frowned down at Denzel as the teen skipped gleefully away, the offending weapon still clutched in hand.

"Gotcha again," Denzel snickered, the soaking towel still swinging gaily from his palm as he skipped away. "Rude, you're losing your tou—"

SPLASH.

Denzel blinked, suddenly sopping wet from the tips of his stubbornly spiky hair to the red-rubber soles of his sneakers. Rude radiated smug victory as he held a bucket of water, somehow standing directly behind Denzel despite having been three feet away two seconds ago.

Tifa stared, eyes widening, her mouth dropping open in unconcealed shock. "How…?"

Denzel burst out into laughter and shook out his hair, wet-dog style. "Like I said. Impossible is possible here."

Rude disapproved (silently, of course) as Denzel flung water from his hair in Rude's general direction. A faintly retributive gleam came into Rude's eyes, and Tifa decided that it was now a good time to take a step back and explore while the two…ah, _acquaintances_ duked it out.

Leaving behind the two in a scuffle of squeaky shoes and waterlogged yelps, Tifa peered around the room properly for the first time. They stood in a huge, arched building with architecture and ceiling murals reminiscent of Renaissance-period vaulted roofs and curved spines. Lit softly with partially hidden ceiling lamps and made entirely of marble, the entrance hall could very well have doubled as a museum foyer.

"Gorgeous, isn't it?" Denzel chirruped suddenly from behind, thoroughly soaked. "It was designed and built by one of the very first Academy students here who had a Genius for telekinesis and a special flair for architecture. I think he's one of the U.S. Ambassadors to Italy now – you can probably tell from the whole Renaissance-era feel of the place."

"I can definitely see the influence," she smiled, scanning her gaze across the vaulted ceilings once more.

Then something clicked in Tifa's head. She turned to Denzel, half-incredulous, half-relieved. "Wait, did you say that he's an _ambassador_ now?"

"Sure," Denzel answered. "Has a pretty villa and everything. I've met him before – he's an awesome guy."

"So we can leave here? After we…ah, graduate?" Tifa asked. She couldn't help but feel somewhat liberated – she'd been starting to grow worried about how long she'd have to stay.

"Of course!" Denzel replied, looking surprised, "In fact, unless you plan on teaching here, they sort of make you go out and make a difference in the world."

"CIA," Rude muttered.

"Hmm?" Denzel replied. "Oh, right. While you're here, after you've reached a certain level of mastery, the government'll start using you for stuff. FBI, CIA, the whole nine yards. We're a huge help to all of them, especially considering our, ah, _specialties_. It's a good deal. We get paid, they get their jobs done – everybody's happy."

Denzel waved his arms around vaguely to emphasize his statement.

Tifa ran her gaze appreciatively through the room again. Staying here didn't seem nearly as terrifying a prospect as it had before.

"Denzel!"

A light voice called from down the hallway, and all three turned to look.

A young woman walked up, shoulder-length brown hair swaying gently in forelocks in front of soft blue eyes. An embroidered but simple white wrap looped into sleeveless straps over her shoulders, tucked into a long blue skirt that brushed the tips of her moccasin-style shoes.

"Oh, hello," she greeted mildly, a smile blossoming over her features. She extended a hand in welcome. "You must be Tifa Lockhart."

Tifa blinked, mouth half-open, ready to introduce herself. "How – how did you – "

"Know what you were about to say?" she completed, smiling. "I've forgotten my manners, haven't I?" She took Tifa's hand and shook it firmly. "I'm Yuna, a Telepath from Clair Unit 35. I saw you coming in and thought I'd drop by to say hello."

"Uh…hi?" Tifa replied hesitantly. _Telepath? Really?_

"I know it's hard to believe, but I really am," Yuna continued good-naturedly, her expression brightening. "I'm not the strongest, so I only get bits and pieces, but it's enough."

"Yuna's being modest," Denzel interjected, grinning and patting her on the back. "She's one of the most fine-tuned Sensitives we have at the Promontory. Plus, she has a very particular talent that she just happened to forget to mention."

Yuna made a face and poked Denzel gently in the ribs. "Denzel, it's not that—"

"She can make people happy," Denzel continued. "She can just blink and – _bam!_ – instant headrush, without caffeine, sugar, or other equally delicious substances."

Tifa's eyes widened as she realized the full implication of Yuna's talents. Happiness, in its own way, was a drug – and, like any other drug, if used with impunity, could cause erratic or even downright insane behavior. And that wasn't even considering the possibility for addiction or withdrawal…

"Looks like Teef thinks it's a big deal," Denzel teased, nudging Yuna. Tifa twitched; she was startled to hear her old, familiar nickname – _Teef_ – so nonchalantly mentioned in this bizarrely new world.

Yuna and Denzel instantly noticed Tifa's reaction and briefly exchanged looks.

"…It rained pretty hard out there, didn't it? You must be soaking," Yuna said gently. "Why don't we get you cleaned up? I'll show you to your room, if you'd like."

"The Newcomers' Wing is one of the prettiest in the entire Promontory," Denzel chipped in. "It's located right in the center of everything, so if you're up to it, we can go exploring afterwards."

Tifa struggled with herself for a moment. She appreciated Denzel and Yuna and Rude – she really did – but she couldn't just move on, could she? Her parents had just died, and here she was, so ready to move forward…

_Alright, Tifa, _interrupted a hard little voice in the back of her head. _ Stop feeling bad for yourself and get up and out there. Whoever killed your parents is still out there. You have work to do_.

_Right._ Tifa tamped down every last welling feeling of regret, depression, and loneliness – and lifted her head just a centimeter higher. _I can do this. I can find them._

She smiled at Denzel and Yuna. "That sounds great."

And I will get my revenge.

…

"He's coming around."

"It's about _time_. He's been out for longer than usual. Reeve was starting to wonder if he'd made a mistake with the incantation."

Someone snorted. "Yeah. Because Reeve makes mistakes _so_ often."

"Seriously," a female voice agreed vehemently. "If anything, the SOLDIERs probably screwed up the spell. They're not exactly known for their delicacy."

_Spell? SOLDIERs?_ Cloud wondered vaguely. _This isn't the school infirmary…_

"You have a death wish or something, Selph? If a SOLDIER hears you talking like that…"

"Oh, please. Like they – "

"Hush, both of you. Cloud? Cloud Strife? Can you hear me?"

Cloud tried hard to respond. He took a deeper inhalation (at which his head threatened to explode), tensed his entire frame (his muscles groaned rustily), and –

"Nghh."

"…Okay, so…do I mark that down on the GCS as a 'yes' or did he just squeak?"

"_Selphie_."

"Fine, fine." A dainty, halfhearted sigh tickled Cloud's ear; a stray strand of hair brushed his cheek…

And then someone rather indelicately pried his left eyelid open. "Hell_ooo_? Anybody in there?"

Cloud jerked away with a groan, rolled over, and promptly threw up.

"Oh…oops," filtered in a sheepish murmur feebly through his still-sizzling brain. "I guess I woke him up too fast."

"Nice aim, though," replied a dry voice.

"Oh stop it, both of you," came the gentle chastisement as Cloud felt someone press a soothing hand between his shoulder blades. "Hey. You okay?"

Cloud gave another miserable cough and opened his mouth to respond when he froze.

The hand resting on his spine was somehow radiating a pleasant warmth – a warmth he could literally feel spreading through his bloodstream, penetrating joints, and burrowing into bone. Easy, somnolent comfort slowly began to leach away all of his body's grievances. Cloud unconsciously leaned into the hand, closing his eyes as sudden drowsiness clambered up his spine and hijacked the driver's seat to his brain…

"Alright, alright, you big softie. Don't put him to sleep again," grumbled a disgruntled female voice. Someone tapped his cheek. "Cloud? You feeling better, kid?"

"Super," Cloud croaked, eyes still pressed shut, grimacing at the acidic aftertaste in his mouth. "Do you have any water?"

"Selphie?"

"Uh – yeah – sure, gimme a sec." Sneakers squeaked away on a tiled floor.

Cloud kept his eyes tightly closed as he sluggishly flopped himself back over and recovered from his exertions. "Uh – where am I again?"

"_Opening _your eyes generally helps with that sort of thing, but you're in the Main Infirmary in Sector 6 if you really must know," answered an amused, definitively female voice. "And you've been asleep for a couple days now, so you might want to try waking up. I'm surprised you even had the energy to puke."

Cloud's brow furrowed and his stomach clenched uncomfortably at the word 'puke.' "Ugh…"

"Umm. Quistis, I don't think you're helping."

"…Depressingly, I'm pretty sure you're right, Rin. I was never that good at this whole thing. I'll go help Selphie bring water or something." No-nonsense shoes clicked away at a brisk pace and faded into the distance.

Cloud heard a light chuckle and a slight, rasping rustle of fabric as someone's shadow loomed over him, blocking out the light trying to creep under his eyelids. "Cloud? Cloud Strife?" The distinctly feminine voice sounded curious, rolling his name on her tongue like it was hard candy. "That's your name, right?"

Cloud tried nodding and then instantly regretted it as another swarm of unpleasant pressure and nausea immediately declared residence somewhere between his eyebrows and at the base of his neck. He flinched, froze, and reached up with his left hand instinctively to rub the new points of pain. "Y-yeah."

"Hmm." Cloud startled as the same gentle hand that had rested on his back descended on top of his left hand. His headache ebbed away again, and this time Cloud could somehow, bizarrely sense that the blissful relief was focused at the center of her palm and at the tips of her fingers.

Cloud cautiously cracked open his left eyelid…and found that icepicks no longer jammed themselves into his skull as muted light filtered in. His eyes assembled the image of a corona of light limning the crown of a raven-haired head. Then a pair of inquisitive onyx eyes; then the delicate lines defining gently curving cheeks, nose, and lips…

She smiled, and Cloud was almost blinded again by the pure _happiness_ that lit up her face. "Feeling better now?"

Cloud nodded awkwardly under his hand and hers, not wanting to risk breaking contact with her hand. He blinked one last time, and the world came into proper focus. "How…how are you doing that?"

Her smile turned into a grin. "Rinoa Heartilly, Healer, Empath Class," she introduced cheerily. "It's nice to meet you. As my title suggests, I'm an 'Path. I can reach into your mind – the part of your mind that governs sensation, anyway – and I can pull out the pain. Handy, huh?"

Cloud gave a tentative smile in response, and he swore he could see her smile crank up a couple more megawatts. "So where does it go after that?"

Rinoa contemplated for a moment. "It's hard to describe…kind of like a repository, I guess? I don't know how else to describe it. It gets locked up in a dark corner of my head somewhere."

Cloud couldn't quite grasp the concept of simply removing pain and storing it away somewhere like plucking and preserving blackberry jam, but he decided to let it go. "Huh. That's…cool."

She chuckled. "Oh, trust me. You probably have a much cooler Gift than me. Just wait until you find out you can blow up stuff or something with your mind. Then you'll see what _'cool'_ really means around here."

Cloud frowned. "Uh. What?"

Before Rinoa could answer, a slight girl in a navy-blue school uniform pranced in with a cup of water clutched precariously in her hands, shoulder-length, flaxen hair dancing in front of bright green eyes. Hurrying at her side walked a taller girl with a bone-straight, sandy-blonde mane whipping before light blue eyes.

"Selphie, Quistis," Rinoa greeted. "Hey! Look who woke up!"

Green-eyes almost slopped the water on herself and Cloud in her excitement as she ran up to him. "Cloud Strife, right?" she yipped breathlessly as she slammed the cup down on the table next to him and clung to the railing as she leaned in to talk to him. "It's a pleasure! I'm Selphie, and the grumpy one back there is—"

"Quistis," completed Blue-eyes with minor annoyance. "Selphie. Did you actually manage to keep any of the water _in_ the cup?"

"I did," Selphie pouted. Quistis looked highly unimpressed with the feat.

"Right, well, you might want to clean up the giant puddles you left everywhere before Reeve comes back and sees—"

"Before I come back and see what?"

Quistis and Selphie both winced as a man walked in through the huge, reinforced-metal sliding door to the infirmary. His voice and face suggested youth, but he sported silver-threaded black hair and a lightly salted beard. "Oh…hey, Reeve," Selphie said guiltily as she glanced back at the trail of water leading up to her feet.

Reeve sighed. "Let me guess. It was an accident, and you'll get right on it?"

Selphie grinned. "Gee, am I that transparent?"

Reeve just smiled. He then turned on his heel, as if he'd forgotten something behind him. "Oh – right, I forgot to tell you three." He gestured behind him. "Please meet Mr. Vincent Valentine."

Cloud tilted his head – thank God he could do that much now without killing himself – and watched interestedly as a taller man walked in. But something about the newcomer – something about the relaxed set of the shoulders, the bounce in his otherwise slinking step – suggested that what should have been an awkward youth had been early and forcibly molded into something far more graceful, far more deadly.

"Good afternoon," reported Vincent politely in exactly the voice Cloud had imagined from Vincent's immaculate black-and-white suit, patent-leather shoes, and ramrod-straight back. Vincent exuded the aura of a perfectly trained hunting hound – chin up, paws neatly gathered, eyes trained only on the hand of the master, ear always half-cocked to hear its next command.

"Good afternoon," murmured Rinoa and Quistis shyly, in the manner of pups saluting an alpha wolf. Cloud knew then that they sensed it, too – the absolute, potentially deadly obedience that leaked from Vincent's every pore.

Even Selphie felt a little discomfited as she quickly rushed off to find cleaning supplies. She didn't look more than once at Vincent before lighting out of the room like hellhounds were snapping at her heels.

Vincent smiled blandly at them, his red eyes _– not red-rimmed or bloodshot eyes, no, his irises __**actually**__ reflected ruby light_ – skimming over them with a professional efficiency. Until he saw Cloud.

Then he stopped.

Not _paused_. Stopped stock-still and flat-out _stared_.

Cloud shifted self-consciously. _That can't be good._

Vincent looked for a couple more seconds, staring intently and yet distantly, as if he were thinking hard about something else entirely and just happened to rest his eyes on Cloud's face as he did so.

Reeve, apparently oblivious to the immediate tension, finally noticed Vincent's intense concentration and looked puzzled. "Mr. Valentine? Do you know Cloud?"

_Cloud._ Vincent seemed oddly satisfied when Reeve stated Cloud's name out loud, and Cloud's uneasiness ratcheted up a few notches. Cloud didn't want this…_Vincent_ person to anything more about him than was absolutely necessary. _Especially_ not his name.

"…No. Not at all," Vincent responded, tearing his gaze away. He flashed another perfect, white-bread smile. "Please lead the way, Mr. Tuesti."

Reeve shot another glance at his uncharacteristically quiet assistants, the pale and shaken patient lying flat out on the bed, and back at the placid Vincent. _What…just happened?_

Reeve shook his head and sighed. Sometimes he really felt age catching up to him.

"Alright, then, right this way, Mr. Valentine…"

Rinoa realized only a couple of minutes after Reeve and Vincent had left that Cloud was shaking. Not quivering or trembling – shaking with hard, jerky pulses of involuntary motion, as if someone was physically grabbing his shoulders and yanking him back and forth like a yo-yo.

"Cloud? Cloud, can you hear me?" Rinoa asked, alarmed. The boy's eyes were wide, his irises mere rings of blue surrounding blown pupils. He was paler than before – white as a sheet of paper, looking as frail as a porcelain doll. But what was most disturbing was that shaking – and, if Rinoa wasn't imagining things, it was getting worse.

Rinoa pressed her fingers to Cloud's forehead and probed deeper into the suddenly disarrayed and muddled mass of emotions in Cloud's mind. She felt a dangerously taut, vibrating fiber humming at an impossible frequency – and, full of disbelief and dread, she _recognized_ it.

"He's seizing," Quistis stated with clinical detachment, tucking a pillow under his head and rapidly moving him level. She flicked a glance at Rinoa, who still stood there, openmouthed and wide-eyed. "Rin, what is it? Help me out here."

Rinoa shook her head. "He's not seizing, Quis," she said, her voice full of wondering confusion. "He's in Limbo."

"What?" Quistis asked impatiently. "Rin, come on—"

"No, I mean, this is what happens to really powerful Clairs – I'm talking like Level 5 and up – when they first get their Gift," Rinoa explained. "When they first enter Somnium, the 5th Plane, high-powered Clairs struggle to reconcile mind with body, and it's not always pretty."

"So what do we do now?" Quistis asked.

"That's the thing…" Rinoa stared at Cloud. "He's not a Clair. It doesn't _feel_ like a Clair entering Somnium by free will. It feels forced – like he's being…carried, somehow."

"Carried?" Quistis was quickly exhausting any knowledge of Clairs that she'd had before. "Who's carrying him? Is that even possible?"

"It's not. It's completely absurd. But…" Rinoa shook herself out of her daze. "We can deal with that later. Let's just get him steady for now."

And then Cloud's shaking suddenly intensified. The spasms shuddered down his backbone and dissipated through his limbs, and his face went completely blank as his eyes rolled back and his entire body arched upward in an agonized half-moon.

Frowning, Rinoa brushed the tips of her fingers against his skin. "But this…" She blinked and then stared at Quistis. "This _is_ a seizure." She immediately burst into action.

"Wait, wha – I thought you just said he wasn't!" Quistis yelped.

"He moved from Clairvoyant Coma State 1 into an actual seizure," Rinoa explained in clipped tones as she cleared obstructions away from Cloud and the bed.

"Is _that_ normal?" Quistis fairly yelled, a little wild-eyed as Cloud thrashed harder.

"No," Rinoa answered quietly as she backed away and gave Cloud space. "No, definitely not."

Both of them watched Cloud with worry and fear as his movements grew more erratic and then normalized in perturbing ebb-and-flow bouts – but Rinoa couldn't help wondering in the back of her mind…

_Just what __**are**__ you, Cloud Strife?_

…

Vincent had definitely seen that kid somewhere before.

_Cloud…Strife…Cloud Strife?_ The name didn't ring any bells. But it was impossible – he was a Turk; he never forgot a face, whether it was the hollow-cheeked one of passerby beggar roaming the streets or a cold, calculating one of a high-placed business official beginning to encroach on Shinra business territory. _Rule #14: Nobody is insignificant. Everyone is a threat._

Vincent frowned at his own paranoia. _Rule #15: However, __**you**__ are always your greatest threat. _Shooting one last, thoughtful look back at Cloud, Vincent returned to scanning the surroundings for immediate danger. _Rule #16: Groundless suspicions have no place in your career. Deal with what you know; then and only then may you attack hazards invented by the mind._

_[You didn't invent the hazard, Vincent.]_

Vincent jerked. Reeve didn't notice.

What the f—

_[Relax,] _– and Vincent could swear he sounded amused – _[it's just me.]_

_That doesn't make this any more okay!_ Vincent growled back. In his head. He suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to bash his skull a couple of times into something unyielding. Preferably steel. _This cannot be happening right now._

_[Somehow I doubt that strategy would work; however, you are free to experiment,] _drifted the lazy, unbidden response.

Vincent clenched his jaw. Nobody had ever mentioned how annoying it could be to have extra voices floating around in your head.

_[Anyway, my point is, you were right. There's something about that kid,]_ continued Rufus, and Tseng could sense his interest spiking sharply. _[Something…curious. See what information you can find on him.]_

_My job is to protect you,_ Vincent replied grudgingly.

_[A job you enjoy so very much, is it?]_ came the dry reply. [_Please don't insult my intelligence. I know you don't particularly enjoy babysitting me, and I don't particularly enjoy the extra company. Besides, you'd enjoy research far more than listening to me practice my Latin.]_

…_you speak Latin._ Disbelief underlay the deadpan.

_[I'm out of practice,]_ Rufus replied with mock modesty. _[Now, do you plan on obeying me?]_

…_As a Turk I am bound to,_ Vincent answered, and felt the alien presence's satisfaction as it departed.

But somehow, even direct orders didn't soothe the itch in the back of Vincent's mind.

Cloud Strife…just who are you?

…

"Mr. President, Director Lazard and Director Tuesti have arrived."

"Show them in."

"Yes, sir."

President Shinra Sr. shifted towards the ceiling-to-floor windows, expensive burgundy silk rustling as he turned. Eyes bearing that piercing, trademark, Shinra-blue glared down at the SOLDIER units sweeping the perimeter below as the office door opened quietly behind him.

"Mr. President," came the respectful greeting from Shinra's newest and most level-headed director, Reeve Tuesti.

Shinra turned, every move slow but deliberate. He focused his hawkish glare first on the salt-and-pepper Reeve, who stood surprisingly calm under the scrutiny – Shinra grudgingly admitted to himself that Rufus's last contribution to Shinra executive appointments had not been entirely useless – and then moved his stare to Lazard.

_Lazard…_ Unbidden memories floated to the surface of President Shinra's mind –_ a lingering look, the tinkle of breathless laughter – "May I, Mr. President?" – the silken tie, the collar of status tied to marriage, coming undone under the swift work of imploring fingers _–

"You bastard!" God, his wife had been gorgeous, even when she was furious –

_A scream, then a silence in which a blind child could only wish to see._

President Shinra tore himself from the mental tangent and glared ferociously at Lazard.

Lazard smiled benignly. "Good morning, Mr. President."

President Shinra eased his gaze and nodded, satisfied. Neither Reeve nor Lazard had flinched under his inspection, as had all of the other Shinra employees – including the other directors. He was now certain he had chosen the right people for the job. "Have a seat."

Reeve and Lazard took their seats in front of his desk, both somehow managing to look comfortable despite their circumstances. Generally speaking, a private conference with President Shinra did not bode well for a director at Shinra, Incorporated.

"Director Reeve, Director Lazard." He allowed the address to sit for a moment as he eyed the two. "You both have hand-selected by myself to head a new covert operation for Shinra, Inc., mission codename PHOENIX."

Reeve and Lazard remained unfazed at this proclamation, politely accepting the information with dips of their heads. The President was impressed. Any other directors would be practically groveling at his feet by now, vomiting insincere thanks while dreaming up some wild scheme to overtake Shinra with their new leverage.

Then again. There was a reason why he had chosen these two specifically.

"Your task will be to discreetly protect and nurture a new recruit to SOLDIER ranks," President Shinra continued, nodding once at Lazard. "Codename the White Prince, the Prince for short."

The President thought he saw a flicker of something pass briefly over Reeve's face – _surprise? Comprehension? Concern? _– before the easy friendliness returned.

"A _single_ SOLDIER recruit, Mr. President?"

The question had come from Lazard, who looked openly puzzled, head cocked a little – just a little – to the side. The President felt a lance of shock ram up his spine. That _particular_ shade of blue in his eyes, that _particular_ blonde, that _particular_ angle of his neck… _Dear God, he looks __**way**__ too much like his brother. _ He strengthened his resolve to keep Lazard away from the public eye.

"Yes, a single recruit," he affirmed. "You'll find that Prince…" _The mansion's foundation shaking with the formidable psychic force of adolescent rage – glass utensils exploding like bombs inside their cabinets – butcher knives and pokers flying about or suspended in midair like something out of a poltergeist horror flick – entire rooms full of furniture upturned in the blink of an eye_ –

"You'll find that the Prince has unique circumstances." _Understatement of the year._ "I warn you two now that it _will_ require both Director Reeve's ingenuity and the full force of SOLDIER's Chevalier to keep him properly protected." _From both prying outsiders…and himself. _

"Understood, Mr. President," Lazard answered promptly.

"I will also be assigning a small attachment of Turks to aid SOLDIER Chevalier in surveying the Prince 24/7. Neither he nor his compound are ever to be left unattended," President Shinra explained.

Lazard coughed into his hand. President Shinra immediately focused in on him, searching for signs of reluctance or betrayal – but Lazard looked…

…amused?

"Is there an issue, Director Lazard?"

"None at all, Mr. President. I merely expect some of our…senior Chevalier will take umbrage at the extra presence of Turks," Lazard explained as the left side of his lips twitched. Reeve seemed to understand the joke a few seconds after Lazard's explanation, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

"As long as it does not interfere with the operation," President Shinra stated bluntly. He had never been a man of subtlety. He panned his gaze over them once more. "I will inform you of the exact location of the Prince's compound and your immediate duties as you return to your offices. Are there any last questions?"

Reeve hesitated. "Actually…"

President Shinra folded his hands expectantly.

"Just out of curiosity…does this 'Prince' happen to be the same one that I examined earlier this evening in the Restricted Access Zone of Area 13?"

The President narrowed his eyes. _If someone knows… _"Who directed you to that location?"

"Tseng, actually," Reeve mused. "Tseng of the Turks."

President Shinra relaxed and almost smirked. "Yes, indeed he is." Reeve was relatively new to the company and practically lived under a rock; considering Rufus's meager media coverage coupled with Reeve's own ignorance (and disinterest) in Shinra's socio-political sphere, Reeve probably hadn't even recognized the face of the young Shinra heir. He would also function perfectly as an obedient concierge doctor.

President Shinra quietly congratulated himself on selecting Tseng as the head of the Turks after Veld's passing. Tseng had radically improved the typical Turk operative behavior – always working behind the scenes, always two steps ahead.

"Mr. President, could I offer a suggestion?"

The President was caught off-guard by Reeve's uncharacteristic forwardness. Reeve, by all accounts, faithfully followed orders (a rare trait), kept Shinra running smoothly (a thankless, damn-near-impossible task), and invented marvels in his spare time as a hobby. Reeve was certainly not the type to offer suggestions lightly.

"Very well," the President indulged, spurred half by courteous diplomacy, half by curiosity.

"I've been breeding a new type of Guard Hound/Isis cat crossbreed down the laboratory," Reeve began. "We've been calling them Alexandria cats. Powerful, highly intelligent, and unusually loyal for a feline species."

"Continue."

Reeve paused, gathering his thoughts. "If I may be so bold, while physically he is healthy…the White Prince is…_extremely_ antisocial. Almost to the point where…where I'm starting to consider muteness or autism a serious possibility," said the director delicately.

Of course, Tseng had already been reported to President Shinra his son's bizarrely reclusive behavior. He'd accepted it. It had been a risk he'd taken in chemically squashing the rebellious streak out of his son. Besides, the loss Rufus's rather cynical personality hardly counted as collateral damage, he rationalized.

_The Prince_, he corrected himself. _Not Rufus. The Prince._

"So I've been informed."

"I was wondering if, perhaps, you would consider it acceptable for me to gift the Prince one of these new Alexandria cats. This…companion, of sorts, would provide him with both a psychological outlet and an unwavering, highly proficient guardian to keep by his side at all times. Killing two birds with one stone, per se."

Although President Shinra scoffed at the thought of a 'psychological outlet' – _for God's sake, it's a cat, not a shrink _– he seriously considered the defense function of one of these 'Alexandria cats.'" After all, the Turks were, despite all his best efforts, human. Dangerously, disappointingly, fallibly human. Beasts, though…

"Do you have any of these so-called Alexandria cats prototyped to adulthood?" President Shinra rumbled.

Reeve looked a little sheepish. "Actually, yes. They grow, ah, significantly faster than I had anticipated. Their longevity is as of yet unknown, as the oldest one is only three years."

"I'll be by your laboratory later to see the Alexandria for myself," President Shinra decided, standing. Lazard and Reeve followed his lead. "I hope that I can trust PHOENIX in your hands?" the President prodded one last time, as if he hadn't already carefully calculated their chances of success.

"Of course," Lazard said with a reassuring smile. "Nothing but the very best."

"Very well. You are dismissed," President Shinra said approvingly.

"Thank you, Mr. President," they replied before they headed for the door, somehow managing to sound genuinely happy to have seen him.

President Shinra waited until they were a safe distance away before sitting back down and examining the surface of his desk. With his desk kept impeccably clear of clerical debris (he left that monstrosity with his many secretaries), only two ridiculously expensive fountain pens, a single manila folder, and a stapled packet of papers awaiting his signature rested on the glossed, mahogany surface.

That and, of course, the obligatory photo frame of the official Shinra family swept onto a desk corner, somehow managing to look forlorn while sitting there, quietly collecting dust.

President Shinra idly picked up the frame. The day the photo had been taken was not a particularly memorable one for the President. The boy had been four or so; just old enough to start learning the brutal way of the businessman-politician despite his ridiculous, glaring handicap, but still young enough to require shielding from the corrupting influences of Shinra associates. The Shinra heir always been an extraordinarily sheltered individual, a situation exacerbated by the sheer fact that the child was _blind_.

Blind. President Shinra still sneered at thought of such weakness running through the veins of a Shinra inheritor. When he'd heard the news, he'd been disgusted – an invalid certainly could not run Shinra, Inc. – and had made his sentiments very clear to his wife and, perhaps to a lesser extent, to his child. Yet his son had then excelled despite – or, perhaps, in spite of – his handicap. Record-high IQ, genius strategist, a natural-born glib politician – all these qualities mitigated only by the fact that Rufus Shinra was a _cripple_…

And then he'd fixed it. And not only that; with the help of Hojo's newest batch of experimental mind drugs – 'mako', is that what the grizzled scientist had called it? – President Shinra had been the first man in history to cure filial disobedience.

Smiling at the thought, President Shinra placed the photo frame face down on his desk and picked up one of his pens as he turned back to his paperwork. He would have a maid shelve it somewhere else later. The photo had no personal meaning; it had merely been a reminder of the President's ultimate goal: to craft a perfect heir.

That goal had been completed. He had no use for petty tokens of the past.

…

A/N: For those of you who are wondering, yes, eventually the viewpoints will be consolidated and streamlined into two major story threads. As of now, though, you'll just have to hang in there!

Comments, questions, and suggestions as always, are well appreciated!

Thanks for reading!

From the Desk of the Black Cat

P.S. – If you're looking for a beta reader, I recently registered as one and would love to help!


	5. Chapter V

A/N: Hello, dearest readers! Yes, I am a terrible person, but the school year has commenced, and life therefore sucks. But I will endeavor to bring you more of my muse's products as quickly as possible, so please do keep reviewing and sending messages-it does this little heart much good :)

Special shout out to:

Iris Irene  
Ski October  
and GameSpazzer

You guys are amazing :)

As always, please enjoy!

* * *

_Click._

Sephiroth fastened the seatbelt of the little recruit – what was her name again? Yuffie? – before surveying the passenger seats in the car.

The spiky-haired electricity-Manipulator – Zack – rested limply in the left far backseat, held upright only by the seatbelt; the redhead Classic Pyrokinetic – Reno – sprawled next to him, lanky limbs refusing to settle in any normal fashion. The little Sprinter – Yuffie – lolled in the first row of the backseats, head drooping onto her chest like a wilted flower.

Sephiroth grew thoughtful. And then there was the case of the Undefined sitting next to Yuffie, fine brown hairs drifting loose of her braid. She was the only passenger that breathed out of tune with the others, merely unconscious rather than under the influence of the Enchantment that Sephiroth had cast on the others. While Zack had sworn that the girl had no connection to him or his Gift, Sephiroth had brought her along anyway, thinking it curious that Zack would go so far to protect a perfect stranger.

Sephiroth shut the door and climbed into the driver's seat. He scanned the motley crew again one last time in the rearview mirror. _One Manipulator, one Classic, one Phys, and an Undefined. Not a bad harvest._

But none of them was a Telepath. Whatever the Chantry Clairs had been looking for remained elusive.

Sephiroth frowned contemplatively. It was rare that quarry escaped the One-Winged Angel. _I'll have to confer with Genesis and Angeal later._

The drive back the Shinra Complex was uneventful and unusually quiet, with nothing but stillness and the perfectly-synchronized breathing of the passengers for company, and Sephiroth pulled up to the gate feeling a little claustrophobic.

"ID, please?"

Sephiroth reached around to get to the card in his pocket and was in the process of extracting it when a building beyond the gate exploded.

BOOM.

Automatically falling back on SOLDIER defensive training, Sephiroth slid out of the car and began scanning the area. _It looks like Bunker II's under attack._

"Take the passengers to the nearest SOLDIER station," Sephiroth ordered, eyes trained on the rising plume of flame and smoke. "Have Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley arrived yet?"

"Yes, sir. They were last tagged at Director Lazard's office, sir."

_Director Lazard's office…_ Sephiroth narrowed his eyes. _That's in Bunker II._

"Leave the situation to me. Care for the recruits," Sephiroth repeated before darting into the night towards the epicenter of the disturbance.

Sephiroth skirted around dozens of other SOLDIER units on the path to the disaster site and inwardly approved at the noticeable lack of panic in the air. Yet at the same time, Sephiroth himself worried. The regular, unfocused movements of troops suggested that the higher authorities had not managed to pinpoint a culprit yet – a rare occurrence in the generally omniscient Shinra Complex.

Sephiroth arrived at the edge of the explosion a few minutes later, boots brushing against a charred steel beam sticking out of a half-demolished building. SOLDIER units were already efficiently gathering the wounded and cleaning away inconvenient rubble, just as they had been drilled to.

"What happened?" Sephiroth snapped at a 2nd Class who bore a fallen comrade of his own over his shoulder.

The 2nd Class saluted as best as he could before speaking. "Sir, we're not sure. Five minutes ago, there appeared to be an incendiary explosion. There was no warning, and it doesn't seem that the guilty party has stepped forward to take credit. 1st Class Chevalier Genesis Rhapsodos and Chevalier Angeal Hewley were nearby when the explosion occurred and are now dealing with containing the situation."

Sephiroth nodded the SOLDIER's dismissal and started ambling in the direction of the thickest smoke, Masamune held slightly aloft and ready to catch any sudden attacks. There were fewer SOLDIERs as he continued on his way – and less rubble, too. The closer he got to the heart of the explosion, the more uniformly decimated the area was.

Sephiroth paused next to a small pile of rubble. His eyes narrowed as he inspected the smoothly sliced edge of a stub of what had once been a supporting beam. _There's no grain or texture of a cutting edge…so there was no physical tool? Pure energy cut this?_

There was only one Chevalier that Sephiroth knew of with that kind of power.

A silver brow rose. _Genesis…? But what reason would he have…?_

"Good to see you, Sephiroth," greeted Angeal's voice wearily from the side. He held Buster Blade in his hand, but with the blade pointed downwards. "You're a bit late for the festivities, unfortunately."

Sephiroth looked around pointedly. "…Must have been quite the party."

"Yes, well." Sephiroth saw Angeal glance away before he changed the subject. "How did the mission go?"

"Unsuccessful. The cat remains free," Sephiroth replied, mentally filing away Angeal's peculiar behavior. "I was actually thinking of discussing it with you and Genesis."

Angeal agreed with a hum.

Sephiroth threw another cursory look around. "Where is Genesis?"

Angeal pressed his lips together more tightly.

Sephiroth tried to extrapolate the answer from the minor facial change for a long, painful minute before succumbing to curiosity. "Well, Angeal?"

The dark-haired 1st Class frowned and hesitated before answering. "Genesis…is in Solitary. Under the watch of two Turks and a Binding Chevalier."

Sephiroth stopped a sigh with some difficulty. "…and what exactly did he do to merit such measures?"

Angeal gestured vaguely around them.

Sephiroth's eyebrows threatened to disappear under a fringe of silvery hair. "…_Genesis_ was the one who blew up Bunker II?"

"It seemed accidental," defended Angeal, almost more to himself than to Sephiroth. "He was just planning on releasing a low-grade incendiary shot, but…"

A heavy silence hung between the two friends. Sephiroth finally voiced the dreaded question. "…And does the _President _know that Genesis is responsible?"

"He does not," Angeal replied determinedly. _And he never will_, was silently appended to the statement. Rogue SOLDIERs were dealt with harshly to begin with. A rogue _Chevalier_ SOLDIER? Unacceptable. "There were very few witnesses, and most of them caught much of the concussory blast. Their short-term memories of the event can safely be assumed to be unreliable at best."

Sephiroth nodded, satisfied. He put Masamune to rest as he relaxed his sword arm. "What of Director Lazard and the guards on Genesis's watch?"

"Lazard won't say anything until he's found the facts." Angeal seemed comforted as he spoke. "As for the guards…I was somewhat hoping that you could help me, Sephiroth," Angeal smiled, a little sheepish. "Your Gift is rather…uniquely suited for that."

"And so it is," Sephiroth agreed. An amused smile crept onto Sephiroth's features. "But Angeal – does this mean that you are asking me to commit high treason and use my Gift on not one but multiple Shinra associates?"

Angeal blinked. "Well…I suppose so."

Sephiroth's grin widened. "What of the upright moral code, Angeal?"

Angeal smiled. "But of course. That is my normal state of being, Sephiroth. When is the last time Genesis ever caused _normal_ problems?"

Sephiroth chuckled. "I concede."

"But still" – and now Angeal was frowning at the distance, looking genuinely worried – "Genesis…"

Sephiroth observed his friend carefully out of the corner of his eye. "…What happened?"

The dark-haired SOLDIER shook his head. "That's the thing. Genesis had the situation under control…and then suddenly his Gift slipped, and he released a loose blast on the entire compound. Luckily for him, nobody died…but still."

"Was there anything unusual about the circumstances?"

Angeal shook his head. "Nothing at all. It was a routine escort; we were on our way to send a new recruit to a SOLDIER station when it happened."

Sephiroth panned his subtly glowing green eyes over the ruined landscape again. Genesis's Gift was…destructive, to put it lightly. Capable of drawing in, compressing, and releasing the energy around him, Genesis could quite unintentionally wipe out an entire city block if he ever lost control of his Gift. And this situation…was not promising.

"We'd better go pay him a visit in Solitary," Sephiroth murmured, sheathing Masamune. "Genesis will, no doubt, have some form of an explanation."

The two 1st Class SOLDIERs began picking their way back through the destruction, slightly reassured by having some plan of action in mind. SOLDIERs – Chevalier SOLDIERs in particular – were always moving, always deciding, even if it was the wrong decision. Hesitation could be equated to death.

Yet Angeal still felt troubled, even with a solid plan of action in mind. _Genesis knows better. He knows his Gift; he wouldn't be this careless…not on purpose, anyway. _"Sephiroth…"

Sephiroth seemed to have been thinking in the same vein. He paused in his rhythmic tread for a moment and turned to look at his longtime comrade and friend. "Angeal." His eyes were clear, focused. "We _will_ get this sorted out. All of us have been sent out on too many missions recently, and Genesis has never exactly been one for perfect control. It was most likely a combination of fatigue and stress that caused this accident, not any internal flaw of his. If anything, this incident will prove to Director Lazard that the 1st Class need a break."

Angeal blinked…and laughed.

Sephiroth tilted his head slightly, brow quirked in light confusion as he regarded his colleague. "Did I…say something humorous?"

"I see you're just as rational as ever, Sephiroth," Angeal chuckled, reassured. His eyes gleamed as he looked at Sephiroth once more. "It's good to have you back."

Sephiroth looked befuddled for a moment – a rare expression – before he, too, smiled. "…And it's good to be back, Angeal. Now let's go clear Genesis before he manages to ruin SOLDIER's good name, shall we?"

Angeal smiled. 'SOLDIER's good name': their little inside joke. As if SOLDIER had ever had a good name to begin with. "Right."

Sephiroth nodded and serenely swept towards Solitary with Angeal keeping stride. The two 1st Class SOLDIERs effectively cut a clean path through the scrambling SOLDIER forces, their purposeful step wordlessly commanding the respect and deference of their subordinates. Their Red-Sea effect combined with the thin coverage of SOLDIER forces and additional mayhem brought by the incoming Shinra Infantry allowed Angeal and Sephiroth to easily slip through a few doors, bypass security locks, and infiltrate the inner quarters of the Solitary Confinement barrack.

"That was surprisingly easy," Angeal noted as they walked casually into the concrete-and-metal bunker that housed the SOLDIER operatives held in Solitary. Even Solitary, which was usually heavily guarded by multiple squadrons, was relatively deserted, occupied by only a few lucky 3rd Class SOLDIERs snoozing in front of the computer screens that displayed the feeds from multiple cameras installed throughout the facility.

"Too easy. SOLDIER and the Shinra Infantry mix about as well as oil and water, and whenever they try to work cooperatively in a task, chaos ensues," Sephiroth said disapprovingly. "We should mention it to Lazard. Perhaps joint training sessions are in order."

"Unless you want a full-blown brawl on your hands, I would not recommend that particular course of action, Sephiroth," Angeal commented dryly. "Do you remember what happened last time Lazard organized a joint training session with SI?"

Sephiroth remembered. It was hard not to. The last time the Shinra Infantry and SOLDIER had held a "training session" together, the two warring forces had razed several buildings to the ground – including a wing of the the infamous Science Department – unleashed two dozen 'prototype' creatures onto Shinra grounds, and (somehow) set Professor Hojo's long, lank hair _on fire_.

Director Lazard had almost lost his job for _that_ fiasco. And it was speculated that Professor Hojo's lasting grudge against SOLDIER had originated from that last offense.

"…Perhaps there is an alternative method," Sephiroth conceded.

"If it weren't for the security flaw, it would have been much more difficult for us to get in here," Angeal offered. "We should be grateful."

"Ever the optimist, Angeal," came a dry voice from the hallway where the Solitary holding cells were located.

"_Genesis_?" Angeal's disbelief was evident as he and Sephiroth watched Genesis smooth his leather duster and step into the light. "I thought that you—"

"Were being guarded by two Turks and a Binding Chevalier?" Genesis completed. He smiled. "Please. As if any self-respecting 1st Class would ever obey a mere 3rd Class."

Sephiroth's silver brows shot up at the statement. "They sent a _3__rd_ Class? To watch _you_?"

"I know, I was offended too," Genesis commented mildly, fixing his glove. "Surely I am dangerous enough to merit the coverage of at least two 2nd Class Chevalier."

"What of the Turks that were placed on watch?" Sephiroth queried. "I assume that SOLDIER attempted to compensate for their lack in personnel by substituting Turks in their stead."

"A foolish choice. One does not send in lambs to watch over a wolf," Genesis sniffed, almost sounding peeved. Sephiroth hid a smile.

"Genesis, you _did_ leave them alive," Angeal said warily, sounding more like a question than a statement.

"They will recover," answered Genesis simply. Angeal could almost swear that the red-haired SOLDIER sounded smug.

"…Hmph." A smile lingered on Sephiroth's face. "It is good to see you again, Genesis."

Genesis inclined his head a fraction. "And the same to you, One-Winged Angel."

"…I should really discourage the other SOLDIERs from using that nickname," mused Sephiroth, contemplative. "It's a bit of a misnomer, really…"

Leaving Sephiroth to ponder his own thoughts, Angeal directed a steady look at Genesis. Genesis caught on almost immediately and met Angeal's gaze with his own. "Does something trouble you, friend?"

"Genesis…" Angeal paused for a moment as he put his thoughts together. "Tell us…what happened back there."

Sephiroth visibly shook himself from his aimless tangent as Angeal spoke. The two 1st Class stared at their comrade unblinkingly, the eerie glow of their eyes mirrored in Genesis's.

To any bystanders, it would have appeared that Genesis did not react to the query. But to Angeal and Sephiroth, both of whom had long since learned to read Genesis's nuances and expressions, Genesis might as well have had a panic attack. His eyes narrowed slightly; his hand tightened around the grip of the rapier and he shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, as if preparing to battle.

"That…is a most excellent question, Angeal." Genesis closed his eyes and waited for a few seconds, forcing himself to relax. When he looked again at Angeal and Sephiroth, he seemed less perturbed.

"When the young Clairvoyant approached, I briefly drew on my Gift to throw a flash-bang," Genesis began. He put up a hand to stymie Angeal's forthcoming chastising. "Yes, Angeal, I know, it's against regulations, but the boy was irritating and I was going have an aneurysm if I heard the child speak one more time."

Angeal closed his open mouth and unsuccessfully resisted the urge to smile as he recognized Genesis's words as almost identical to his own thoughts.

"Then that was it, then? Just a flash-bang?" Sephiroth pressed.

Genesis nodded curtly. "Just a flash-bang. Nothing more. But somehow, as I drew on my Gift…something changed. Some…external force interfered with my control of my Gift."

Angeal and Sephiroth considered the new information in silence.

"As you both know well, concentration and absolute control are needed to properly harness a Gift, especially one so…destructive as mine," Genesis continued. "These are both attributes expected of any 1st Class Chevalier, myself included."

"But whatever this outside force is, it disrupted your focus?" Angeal guessed. Genesis conceded with a nod.

"Can you describe it more exactly?" asked Sephiroth.

"Perhaps that is the most peculiar part of this tale," Genesis commented, frowning. "It didn't feel like a deliberate nudge or a tremor, or any of the ways in which a Chevalier might try to disrupt one's focus. It was more of a…_flare_. As if my Gift had…"

Genesis halted, unwilling to continue.

"As if it had suddenly spun out of control for an instant," Sephiroth completed quietly.

Silence reigned as the three mulled it over, lost in their individual thoughts. Genesis unconsciously opened and closed his fists, as if reassuring himself that he still had complete control over his hands' motor function.

Angeal shifted and looked to Genesis, coming to some sort of conclusion. "Genesis, whatever it is…we can deal with it later. Let's go talk to Lazard. He's our Director, and as such, we should consult with him first before taking any random drastic measures."

Sephiroth briefly considered the proposition and then nodded. "That seems like the best plan of action in this case, Genesis. Lazard's reasonable. He'll listen to what we have to say."

Genesis hesitated. He flicked his gaze back and forth between his friends' faces, searching for traces of fear or doubt in their expressions.

He met nothing but placid faith.

Genesis's tense green eyes slowly relaxed. "That seems…safe enough. To Lazard it is, then."

All three of them began heading for the door, their steps falling into a comfortable, practiced synchronicity, but just before they crossed the threshold, Genesis halted. Angeal and Sephiroth twisted to look back at their comrade.

"Genesis?" Angeal probed.

"Angeal, Sephiroth." Genesis's voice was reflective. "If I…if my control over my Gift should ever waver…"

They were all thinking about it. Executive Order #9. It was one of the first things a Chevalier would learn as he or she entered the Shinra SOLDIER Academy, repeated four times daily for three weeks to all new recruits – once at every meal time and once before bed – until it was tattooed into all of their skulls:

"Executive Order No. 9: In the event that a Shinra Chevalier is labeled rogue or uncontrolled, all Shinra Infantry, SOLDIERs, and Chevalier are granted immediate permission to execute on sight. Live capture is preferred, but is not necessary.

This is a duty expected and demanded of all Shinra affiliates, regardless of rank or ability."

'Uncontrolled'. Genesis's situation sounded more and more like it fit that profile.

Sephiroth blinked once, slowly, giving him an oddly feline appearance. "If I remember correctly, Executive Order #9 speaks of 'all Shinra affiliates'." A slight smile curved his mouth. "It says nothing of…old friends."

_You matter more to us than a direct order,_ said Sephiroth's little smile and Angeal's calm eyes. _We will not abandon you._

Genesis blinked…and then smirked to himself. "…Right. Well, what are we waiting for? Lazard's personal invitation?" He brushed past his two fellow 1st-Class in his usual airy manner.

"Somehow I doubt one will be forthcoming," muttered Angeal as he followed.

"You're the optimistic one, remember, Angeal?" Sephiroth quipped, falling into step. "_I'm_ the unpleasantly realistic one."

"And me?" Genesis queried, looking over his shoulder.

Angeal and Sephiroth looked at each other briefly.

"The troublemaker," they said in unison.

And as Genesis turned back forward huffily, feigning irritation, he had to hide his smile.

* * *

Lucrecia Crescent sighed as she put down her pen.

She was not having a good day.

Despite having gathered up another confused and lost member for the FBI's Genius Division, Lucrecia couldn't help but notice all of the conspicuous Geniuses that had recently disappeared from the radar. Vanished. Like they'd never been there to begin with.

Lucrecia closed her eyes and leaned back, stretching her arms. Her Genius automatically branched out again as she closed her eyes, and she could feel the other Geniuses in the world humming around her, hundreds – maybe even thousands – of tiny pinpricks of light against a fuzzy gray backdrop.

But there were fewer than she'd remembered. _But they were there…I know they were. I could sense them, wandering around, otherwise perfectly normal people living their perfectly normal lives. Completely unaware of the fact that they're something else entirely._

She frowned slightly. But people couldn't just hide from her Genius. There had to be something else at hand.

Lucrecia sighed again and resigned herself to staring at yet another piece of paperwork. Nobody knew how difficult it was to head the FBI's Genius unit.

A soft knock at the door.

"Yes, come in," she said, laying down her pen.

The door opened quietly and a tall male Genius operative strode in. Like most of the higher-class Genius operatives, he broke from standard uniform protocol, donning a black combat ensemble emblazoned with red motifs of lions; a ruff of white fur lined the collar of his open jacket, and a claymore-style blade rested at his hip. Slightly shaggy brown hair fell just in front of dark eyes.

"Leon," Lucrecia greeted with a weary smile. "It's been a while since I last saw you. How have you been?"

"I've been well, thank you. And you, Director?" Leon replied in his muted, courteous tone.

Lucrecia gestured at the piles on her desk. "Unproductive, apparently. It's a mystery, really – how is it that six hours of rubbing one's hand raw has had no impact on this…mountain of paperwork?"

Leon smiled briefly. "My condolences."

She shook her head, sighed, and folded her hands neatly on her desk, leaning forward. "But of course, that's not why you're here. What's bothering you, Leon?"

Leon took the seat in front of her desk and thought for a moment. "The concentration of Geniuses nearby…"

"Has been plummeting?" Lucrecia offered with another hefty exhale, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I know. I can see that I'm not the only one who noticed."

"It doesn't make sense," Leon corroborated with an inclination of his head. "I was staking out some of those Geniuses myself. A pyrokinetic, a healer, and a possible elemental – three of the potential recruits just vanished under my watch. I went to check on them thinking that they might have somehow hidden their Geniuses, but…"

"They weren't there," Lucrecia surmised from the uncomfortable look on Leon's face. "I see."

"They didn't just leave, either." Leon was frowning now. "In every situation, something out of the ordinary had happened – in one case, a bomb went off in the residence; in another, half of the house had been inexplicably bulldozed – and then the involved Genius simply disappeared."

Lucrecia narrowed her eyes a fraction. "Wait…a bomb? A house spontaneously demolishing itself? That sounds…"

A silence fell over the office as they both contemplated the possibilities.

"It sounds like a Shinra affair," Leon finished quietly, staring somberly at the sheen of Lucrecia's desk. "That was my first thought. Quick, dirty, and untraceable. That's their signature."

Lucrecia rubbed her forehead. If Shinra really was involved, then the complexity of the situation had increased tenfold.

The government had been itching to nail Shinra, Inc. for some violation for _decades_ now, but every time the FBI or CIA even approached to investigate, the case imploded. It didn't matter what they were going for – murder, kidnapping, intimidation, conspiracy, even treason. Key witnesses went missing or suddenly refused to testify; financial discrepancies and paper irregularities were explained away or accounted for by clerical error. On one memorable occasion, an entire vault of digital evidence in the FBI information systems had evaporated. Years' worth of work lost overnight.

Of course, not once had Shinra, Inc. been implicated.

"Not to mention their lawyers," Lucrecia muttered under her breath. Shinra Inc. also kept a permanent retainer of the best legal counselors that money could buy: all of them smiling, cold-blooded sharks who had circumventing the law down to an art. Just in case.

"Like I said. Quick, dirty, and untraceable," Leon concurred. "No doubt, Shinra will deny any and all charges you could bring against them."

"And we have no probable cause for kidnapping, either," Lucrecia sighed. "Or at least, none that would stand up in open court. Especially considering the fact that the general public has no knowledge of the existence of Geniuses to begin with."

"The perfect crime," Leon mused, and Lucrecia had to agree.

"Well at least we can safely assume it's Shinra's work again," Lucrecia said, trying her best to remain optimistic. "Nobody else could think up or execute a plan this devious."

"What do you think they're doing with the Geniuses?" Leon asked, propping his left foot up on his right knee.

"God only knows," Lucrecia professed. "The FBI's been trying forever to get into their archives, but we can't even get past the first firewall. We haven't ever come close to getting into their research and development before, so we can't even tell if they're conducting illegal science experiments with the people they're kidnapping or if they're adding them to that paramilitary force of theirs."

"How are they legally operating that program, by the way?" Leon asked, brow furrowed thoughtfully. "I thought that only the United States was allowed to maintain a standing army."

"They call it a 'contracted mercenary force with a protracted duration of service,'" Lucrecia said dryly. "As if the name of the program wasn't self-explanatory enough: SOLDIER. But they're smooth operators. They've won their right to their 'contracted military force' fair and square in open court before the Supreme Court."

"Right. It has nothing to do with the fact that they're also the U.S.'s number one weapons contractor," Leon murmured.

Lucrecia blinked…and laughed. Leon stared, bemused.

"I had no idea you even had a sense of humor, Squall," Lucrecia grinned.

He scowled. "It's _Leon_."

"Right, of course. My apologies." Lucrecia was still smiling. "Anyway, it's good to hear from you again. How have _you_ been?"

Lucrecia's tone made it obvious that the conversation had moved from work to personal life. Leon elected to willfully ignore the shift.

He shrugged. "Still working the ten-hour shifts. Still getting the same pay. Still stuck with the same partner."

Lucrecia gave Leon a sideways look, explicitly noting evasion tactic, but did not comment. "I can't quite remember…your partner was…?"

"Highwind. Cid Highwind," Leon replied with an undertone of resignation.

Lucrecia's mouth quirked upwards as she folded her hands on her desk. "Oh, I remember him. The 'loose cannon'? He's something of a mechanical Genius, isn't he?"

"Something like that," Leon stated flatly.

Lucrecia tapped her cheek pensively. "I still find it odd that he hasn't been transferred to the Science and Research Department yet. It's a known fact that he'd be more useful over there than in the field."

"With all due respect, Director, S&R hasn't been able to get anything done properly since Professor Hojo left the government for Shinra, Inc."

"And isn't that the truth," Lucrecia sighed. "As amoral as he was, Hojo was a brilliant scientist. We lost a valuable asset when he left."

Leon nodded grudgingly. "Rumor says that he's managed to create a serum of some sort. Supposedly it temporarily induces Genius-type abilities in normal people and exponentially boosts natural Geniuses."

"And just where did you hear this rumor?"

"Denzel, actually. Kid's got ears like a rabbit's, and he's been on more Shinra-related missions than I have, thanks to his Genius."

Lucrecia raised an eyebrow. "You're basing your assumption on the hearsay of an underage operative who, by the way, has created for this department more collateral damage and legal costs in one year than you've cost us in your entire tenure? My, my. Times have changed."

Leon cocked his head. "His hearsay along with the fact that Shinra's research department hasn't gone dark in over two years now."

"…There is that," Lucrecia conceded with a slow nod. "Then I have to ask – why haven't we made a deal with them yet? I'm sure that the CIA and FBI – and Homeland Security, for that matter – wouldn't just allow Shinra to develop and use this serum by themselves."

"My guess is that they're too valuable to us to muscle in on their operations whenever we want," Leon speculated.

"Really? Too valuable for the CIA to muscle in on something?" Lucrecia's voice embodied the essence of skepticism. "That would be a first."

"Well. That, and the fact that nobody's survived the serum they've developed."

"Good God," Lucrecia murmured, settling her hands in her lap and leaning back in her chair. She turned the chair to look out the window behind her, where Shinra, Inc.'s sleek glass obelisk of a building shone in the night like a skyward-pointing dagger of black obsidian. The elegant metal logo crowning the building winked at her tauntingly in the glare of its spotlights.

_So close and yet so very far away._

Leon's cell phone chirped, breaking the silence. Lucrecia could hear the rustle of cloth as Leon pulled out his phone and check the message.

"I'm on duty again," Leon finally said. The phone snapped shut, and another soft hiss of cloth and jingle of chains announced Leon's imminent departure. "A simple escort job. Shouldn't take too long."

"It was good to hear from you again," Lucrecia said, turning to watch Leon leave. "Oh, and Leon?"

Leon turned his head, halfway out the door.

"How is the pain, really?" Lucrecia's eyes were intense, riveted on what little of Leon's face was visible past the ruff of fur on his shoulder. "Are you…holding up okay?"

Leon stood for a moment in silence before replying. "…Same as always, Director." He exited with a quiet chime of metal and closed the door behind him.

Lucrecia exhaled slowly and turned back to look out at the Shinra building once more.

"Still that bad, huh?"

* * *

_If the entrance hall could be compared to the Smithsonian's lobby_, Tifa thought, eyes huge and wandering, _then the rest of this place could be a dozen Disneylands. It's __**huge**__._

And indeed it was. Tifa had been walking along the spacious hall for a while – all of which still conformed to the tasteful gold-and-marble décor of the entrance hall – and had noted dozens of hallways branching off to either side. According to Denzel, their self-appointed narrator, each hallway varied between a half-mile to a mile in length and led to classrooms, living quarters, and collective-use facilities provided for the students.

Denzel merrily continued his rapid-fire monologue as Rude and Yuna drifted along peaceably behind, flanking Tifa and her enthusiastic tour guide. He pointed his finger at one hall particularly heavy with pale white marble and soft lighting.

"…and that hall is Temperance Hall – also known as Spook Central. It was built a couple of years ago by Seymour, one of our top psychics, and was designed specifically to house the ghost-whisperers and whatnot. It's a designated 'quiet zone' so that they can commune with the dead more easily – or something like that, anyway. It's also a safe haven for some of the more delicate Sensitives that can't handle the mental pressure of constant mind-chatter."

Denzel shook his head sympathetically. "Poor guys. They always seem a little out of place, no matter where they go – ooh! I almost missed the Nuclear Silo!" He gestured towards another entryway, this one bearing scorch marks and other alarming signs of damage.

Tifa's guide grinned mischievously. "That's technically Wexler Hall, but it's usually called the Nuke Tank. Most of the guys over there have some wicked-nasty destructive Geniuses, so they're all sort of herded into one area where they can't hurt anybody but each other—"

"Denzel," Rude cut in with his deep rumble.

Denzel stuck his tongue out at Rude. "Geez, Rude, you're such a party pooper…"

Yuna sidled up next to Tifa as Rude and Denzel went back to re-enacting an episode of Tom and Jerry. "Hey, Tifa, are you okay?"

Tifa smiled and nodded. "Yeah," she said, and was a little surprised to find that it was the truth. "It's a lot to take in, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it."

Yuna beamed. "That's the spirit. It's hard to believe sometimes, but it _does_ get easier as time goes on. Do you have any questions?"

Tifa thought. "How many people are there in this school?"

Yuna smiled apologetically. "Umm, believe it or not, I have no idea. There's a bunch of different rosters of the students residing in each hall, but the master list is confidential. Only a few people know the full list."

Tifa blinked. "Can I ask why?"

The psychic sighed. "Unfortunately, as people mature their Geniuses, their minds do not necessarily follow suit. And, since some Geniuses can be…ah, harmful to other people, we try our very best to keep possibility of conflict to a bare minimum."

Tifa processed the information and laughed. "Wait, so it's like a preemptive time-out? You don't tell everyone where everyone lives because someone might try something stupid?"

"Sadly, yes." Yuna donned a look of pained exasperation. "The last time we had a full roster posted, the eloquently named 'Nuke Tank' decided to declare war on one of their less robust colleagues."

Tifa could practically smell a good story. "What happened?"

"The victims of the Nuke Tank's terrorizing happened to be minor psychics," Yuna continued. "In retaliation, the victims launched a full-force dream assault."

"A dream assault?"

"Perhaps a more accurate name for it is 'nightmare assault.'" Yuna winced at the memory. "It was ridiculous. Since the psychics were inexperienced, they ended up letting the nightmare loose on everyone. Nobody could get any decent sleep."

"What was it?"

"To be perfectly honest, I don't remember. But there was something about horse-sized ostriches dancing with squeaky, singing cactuses. Oh, and there were angry turtles wearing monks' habits and armed with knives, chasing people."

Tifa looked dubious. "Singing cactuses and angry turtles?"

"Trust me when I say that it was much worse than it sounds."

"It was very Lewis-Carroll," Denzel piped up, leaping uninvited into their conversation. "Kinda like being trapped in Wonderland for a while. I thought it was kind of interesting the first time I saw it." As Denzel spoke, Rude – _sans_ a couple buttons on his suit – sauntered up in an extremely self-satisfied silence.

"Rude never looked at chicken the same way again," Denzel noted with a cackle as he saw Rude approaching. Rude twitched at the word 'chicken', but made no other indication of discomfort.

Yuna looked at the two of them in polite befuddlement before turning back to Tifa. "Like I said. The nightmare was a lot worse than it sounds now. But the worst part was that nobody else got any sleep after that…"

Denzel chortled. "Heh, I remember that time. Everyone was walking around like zombies by the second night." He amended his statement. "Well, everyone but the caffeine- and Red Bull-addicts. They were bouncing off of the walls."

"_Literally_ bouncing," Rude groused.

"Rude. I almost forgot what your voice sounded like," an amused voice commented from their left.

They all shifted to look at the newcomer.

Much to her embarrassment, Tifa's attention was first caught by his sheer good looks. He was tall, dark, and handsome – every teenage girl's vision of a dark knight. High-browed and hollow-cheeked, dressed in black combat clothing from head to toe. With his half-jacket and unapologetically ostentatious collar of leonine fur, he broke the 'badass' mold just enough to look absolutely stunning.

It was _somewhat_ difficult not to stare.

Yuna, apparently invulnerable (or already acclimated) to the come-hither vibe, smiled happily and waved. "Hey, Leon!"

_Leon_. His name fit him like a glove.

"Hello, Yuna," Leon returned politely as he loped over to them. He nodded once to Rude and smiled faintly at Denzel – and then, with a curious little tilt of the head, looked at Tifa.

His brows knitted slightly and he leaned a little to consider her. "Tifa…Lockhart?"

Tifa was startled by his sudden proximity. "Um. Yes?"

He nodded to himself and rocked back onto the heels of his feet, straightening. "Director Crescent sends her welcome to you, Tifa Lockhart."

Tifa blinked. _Director who?_

Leon turned his attention back to Rude and Yuna. "Due to certain…extenuating circumstances with Miss Lockhart, I will be escorting her to a different location. She will be under direct purview of the Genius Department until further notice. You are relieved of duty."

Yuna's brow quirked. "Extenuating…circumstances?"

Leon acquiesced with a gentle tilt of his head. "I don't have all of the details, but it is a…strange situation. Even by our standards."

"Strange as in Shinra-strange?" interrupted Denzel suddenly.

Leon narrowed his eyes and shot a piercing look at Denzel. "…Denzel…are you just shooting in the dark, or have you been eavesdropping again?"

Utterly undaunted, Denzel grinned. "So it _is _Shinra-strange!"

"I said nothing of the sort."

"But you _implied_ it!" sang Denzel, practically bouncing with excitement. He winked conspiratorially at Leon. "But don't worry, Leon, your secret's safe with me. Oh, and by the way, I have some more stuff to tell you whenever you have some extra time to chat. You know you want to hear it!"

Leon fixed Denzel with a look caught somewhere between amusement and exasperation. "…Denzel…"

"Wait, hold on a second," Tifa interjected, frowning. "What is 'extenuating circumstances' supposed to mean? I thought everyone here has Geniuses."

"They do," Leon confirmed, turning his attention to Tifa. "In your particular case, the special circumstances have to do with your personal history rather than your Genius."

"Well then, what exactly in my 'personal history' makes me so special?" Tifa pressed. She had never exactly been the type to quietly accept external interference in her life – and she wasn't planning on starting now.

Leon looked…baffled. "I'm…not entirely sure. Your profile was flagged. As a member of the Executive Force in the Genius Department, it is my duty to ensure your safe arrival and supervision until later notice."

"And you're just going to follow your orders without even stopping to wonder why?"

"I…" Leon seemed to find his resolve, and he shifted ever so slightly to turn his entire body towards Tifa. His voice was steady as he replied: "Yes. Yes, I am."

Tifa's temper flared. "Fine, then. If you won't tell me, then I'll just figure it out by myself."

"It's not a matter of my desire to tell you the truth," explained Leon with infinite patience. "I _do not know_ your exact circumstances. I'm sure that Director Crescent will undoubtedly have more details for you when you meet her tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Tifa's anger built. "You're telling me that I'm supposed to twiddle my thumbs while you figure out what to do with me?"

"Miss Lockhart—"

"My parents are _dead_, and you're seriously expecting me to just sit here and wait?" Her fists clenched.

A tiny, rational voice somewhere in the back of Tifa's mind knew that she was lashing out aimlessly, made unpredictable and volatile by sudden emotional trauma. It wasn't fair to jump to conclusions – but her heart hurt, and Tifa felt the overwhelming need to be able to _do_ something, to reassert control over the topsy-turvy whirlwind of her life—

With all the speed and agility of the state-qualifying tennis player that she was, Tifa punched Leon.

In retrospect, Tifa could barely even remember her hand darting out and feeling the solid pain of her knuckles colliding with bone. She could feel the force of impact shuddering up her arm and then, to her great surprise, staggered back, her balance disrupted by the recoil.

Leon rolled the punch, instinctively stepping back to avoid bearing the full brunt of the blow. He diverted his remaining backwards momentum to a skipping sidestep that increased distance between himself and Tifa and recovered quickly, turning back to face his unexpected assailant.

Tifa and Leon then stared at each other for five seemingly interminable seconds, both of their faces expressing a mixture of surprise, confusion, and adrenaline-fueled fight-or-flight instinct. Fierce dark eyes met calculating blue, and for a moment it seemed that a full-fledged fight would break out.

Denzel interrupted the standoff with a burst of laughter.

Tifa and Leon jerked involuntarily at the sudden sound, and each spared time for an incredulous glance at the boy before quickly turning back to glare at each other.

Denzel blithely continued laughing until he was bent double, eyes watering with mirth. At this point, all other parties – Leon and Tifa included – were bewildered enough to stop and stare at Denzel instead.

"Denzel…" Rude quested cautiously, as if doubtful of his little partner's sanity.

"Leon," Denzel squeezed between breaths, "you just got punched out by a _girl_!"

Leon blinked…and then rolled his eyes. Breaking the stalemate, he straightened from his low, tense fighting stance, crossed his arms, and raised an eyebrow.

"…Seriously, Denzel? _That_ was your _first_ thought?"

Denzel, unable to suppress his giggles, gave no response. With a polite cough, Rude kicked Denzel in the shin, marginally halting the inexplicable, uncontrollable laughter.

"I'm…sorry, Tifa," Denzel apologized sincerely as he wiped his eyes, the flow of his speech interrupted by the occasional hiccup. He continued smiling, as if still enjoying whatever private joke had triggered the outburst.

Leon's brow twitched. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. "Denzel. Let me get this straight. You find it amusing that I received a blow…and then you _apologize_ to the deliverer of aforementioned attack?"

Denzel nodded enthusiastically once before Rude nudged him reprimandingly in the ribs. "Well. Maybe I'm not so happy about the fact that you got hit…but it's still funny that the first person to hit you is a girl."

Tifa was puzzled by Denzel's reply. _'The first person…?'_ "Wait. Denzel. Are you saying that Leon's never been punched before?"

Leon turned to face Tifa guardedly, as if still expecting her to attack him. "That's not quite correct. In the past, I underwent extensive martial arts training as a member of an underground organization called SeeD. One of the particular skills they teach there is defense against blitz attacks…such as yours."

"I think that's the first time I've ever seen you caught off-guard, Leon," Yuna inputted ponderously, somehow _completely_ unfazed by the random acts of violence. "You're one of the fastest people in the Genius Division, too, aren't you?"

"Are you losing your touch, Leon?" Denzel teased, eyes glittering impishly.

Rude adjusted his sunglasses. "…Actually, I think that was Tifa's Genius. Her ability to suspend time probably undermines an opponent's speed. No matter how fast Leon moved, she still would have landed the punch."

Denzel gazed in fascination as Rude spoke. "…Whoa. Rude. You can talk in full sentences?"

Rude scowled at Denzel.

"Rude has a point," Yuna agreed. She looked at Tifa thoughtfully. "It seems that your Genius has already proven itself quite formidable."

"I don't remember using it," Tifa said, perplexed. And it was the truth – she couldn't even remember consciously deciding to punch Leon, much less activating her Genius in the split second before impact.

"Your control over your Genius will grow with time and training," Leon assured her, apparently having rediscovered his serene patience

"Oh, geez." Denzel rolled his eyes. "Not this speech again. You sound like an old man, Leon…"

As Denzel teased Leon, Tifa marveled at how quickly Leon had forgiven her. She had, after all, just taken a swing at his face – for something that was both impulsive and entirely not his fault. And now that her anger had passed, she felt the first prickles of embarrassment heating up her cheeks.

"Umm…Leon…" Tifa began, fidgeting uncomfortably. Denzel quieted, and her gaze darting around the vicinity, refusing to look at Leon. "I…I think I sort of owe you an apology."

"Don't worry about it." Leon's voice never changed from its calm, gracious tone, and Tifa couldn't resist looking up then. Leon showed not a trace of anger – in fact, he was smiling, as if slightly amused.

Tifa forged ahead, a little confused by his reaction but encouraged by his mild temper. "Still, I…I mean, I kind of punched you…"

"And you certainly pack quite a punch," Leon commented genially. Tifa felt her embarrassment broadcast itself across her blushing cheeks at his candor.

Amazingly, Leon chuckled. "Tifa. Relax. I was joking." A small but pleasant smile had settled across his features. "When I first got here, I was under 'extenuating circumstances' too. And I not only punched my guide, I also took out some of the other students, too."

"Oh, so you must be the reason why we bring new recruits in when the other students are in class," Yuna observed astutely.

Denzel listened with morbid interest. "Wait, really? What happened?"

"Cid Highwind was my guide at the time." Leon half-smiled, half-grimaced. "I was still raging through the student body when he got up, dusted himself off, and punched me back."

"Not the most subtle of individuals," Rude noted.

"It makes sense now, though." Leon focused his attention on Tifa again. "I know…it's difficult to trust us right now. You don't know any of us, and you have no reason to believe anything we say."

Tifa privately agreed. She had practically been blackmailed into coming here in the first place.

"But despite its flaws, the Genius Division – this place, the Promontory—" Leon gestured vaguely at the building they were in. "That this is the safest place for people like us. Those gifted with Geniuses.

"The normal world is not ready yet to accept our existence. And if you try to keep your Genius a secret out there…well. Nobody can keep a secret forever." His eyes grew a little distant, a little sad. "But here you'll have friends. You'll have mentors. People who have at least an idea of what you're going through."

"We're a weird little group," Denzel chipped in. "But that makes us all a pretty close bunch. Almost like a…like another family."

_Family_. That was the magic word. Tifa swallowed the lump that caught in her throat.

"We can't force you to be happy here," Yuna added, and then paused and ruefully amended her statement. "Well. We can't force you to be happy here of your own accord. But we'll care about you. We'll listen. We'll help."

"And that's something people take for granted," Rude said in his deep timbre. "Especially the former non-Geniuses."

"Reconsider our proposition, Tifa," Leon proposed. "And I know it's hard, but just trust us for the first few days. It gets better. I promise. It always gets better."

Surrounded by nothing but welcoming faces, Tifa's residual doubts didn't stand a chance. Of course, she would never forget what she had come here to do – claim vengeance on those who had killed her family – but she knew deep down that she longed for another family. Maybe it wouldn't be as good as her first, maybe not as clean-edged, but she missed feeling that definitive sense of _belonging_ somewhere. And as strong as her desire for revenge was now, Tifa knew it would weaken in the face of loneliness and unadulterated solitude.

She brushed her hair out of her face and donned a little smile.

"I guess there's no better time to start trusting you than now," she declared with an almost fierce cheerfulness, turning to Leon. "Lead the way, Leon. 'Extenuating circumstances' it is."

Without warning, Denzel flew at Tifa with another startling tackle-hug. "I'll miss you," he said in a moment of surprising sentimentality, his voice muffled in cloth of her shirt. He then flitted back to Rude's side and beamed. "You'll stick around long enough for Rude and me to visit you later, right?"

Tifa grinned at the hyperactive little boy. "Of course."

"Cool. Let's go, Rude!" Denzel went prancing down the hall, and, after a little dip of his head to Tifa, Rude followed in his footsteps.

Yuna also caught Tifa in a surprisingly strong but gentle hug. Tifa felt a surge of affection for her new friend, something that she was sure had nothing to do with Yuna's bizarre Genius.

"I'll come by later to see you," Yuna promised as she slowly stepped back. "May good luck follow your footsteps."

Leon said nothing and just smiled – a warm, genuine expression that softened the hard lines and edges that comprised his face. He nodded once – a silent '_ready to go?_'

With one more nervous flutter of her heart, Tifa nodded. "Yeah. I'm good."

"Follow me," he said, turning.

Tifa walked alongside him…and didn't look back.

* * *

The Shinra were reputed within the highest echelons of society as the Borgias of the business world. Predators of even their fellow predators, they stood above their peers aloof and proud, secure in the knowledge of their own unapproachable superiority. Impossible to please, impossible to impress – and _certainly_ not dazzled by something as simple as light.

Yet Rufus was.

There was something…_miraculous_ about light. Even _holy_, if Rufus were one to subscribe to such nonsense as religion. Granted, it was an entirely novel experience for the young heir, and some curiosity was to be expected – but somehow…it was something more.

Light made no sound as it crept in unabashedly in the morning; it never once rustled nor stirred the curtains as it retreated at twilight. You could not taste the richness of its many hues, nor smell it banish night's darkness. In his days of darkness, Rufus had known of light's heat, but didn't know of its subtleties – mysterious in its intangibility, incomprehensible in its phantom warmth.

And color – _color_. The first thing he'd seen when he'd opened his eyes was a mass of hard color – steady, solid ones like the black of hair, the ruby of eyes, the pure white of the collared shirt, and the steady navy-blue of the Turk uniform. But daybreak and dusk had begun introducing Rufus to every shade in between, from the light pink-and-orange sherbet blush of the small hours in the morning to the somber blue-purple robes that the world donned with nightfall. The whole matter was mystifying and awesome and made Rufus understand for the first time the meaning of the word 'beautiful.'

Rufus shifted slightly in the snow-white sofa where he lounged on the raised platform. He always felt comfortable – safe, even – in atrium, nestled surely in the pure white that had dazzled him the first time he'd really opened his eyes. There was something about white that was godly, something pure – and it was the only color that even came close to emulating the brilliance of light.

Not to mention the fact that it exponentially increased his natural psychic abilities.

For whatever reason, the growing power flourished – and continued to flourish – in the presence of so much light. It practically demanded to be used. His original reservoir of mostly-latent, mostly-spontaneous psychic energy had suddenly manifested in controllable forms of telekinesis and telepathy – and he hadn't even really tried pushing his limits yet.

Rufus narrowed his eyes at a nearby glass. Vincent would not return for a while, and none of the patrolling SOLDIERs had clearance to enter White Hall. Now was the opportune time to try mastering his newfound skills.

He experimentally tried nudging the glass to the left.

The glass flew off of the table and shattered midair before it could even hit the wall.

Rufus was momentarily enraptured by the glittering fragments fracturing the light on the ground – _red, yellow, and blue, all streaming from a single stem of white? How?_ – before realizing the utter failure of the experiment.

He raised an eyebrow at the pulverized remains. _…Well. Looks like I need a little practice._

He was in the process of refocusing his concentration on remotely cleaning the mess when the door opened again.

"Good evening." Reeve looked as tousled and friendly as usual in his lab coat and ruffled dress shirt. He bore a small beige box under his arm.

Rufus glanced dubiously over Reeve and quickly scanned the older man's mind – _nothing but good intentions again, unbelievable; was I wrong to recommend him for promotion?_ – before turning back to stare moodily out at the sunset.

Reeve seemed entirely unconcerned by the obvious snub. He began walking up the stairs, crate still held in hand. "You seem distracted this evening."

_/He must still be in shock/_, Rufus heard from the confines of Reeve's mind. /_Poor child. This gift is perfect for a lonesome one like him./_

Rufus almost – almost – laughed aloud. Poor Reeve, deluded into thinking a Shinra was capable of feeling loneliness.

Reeve continued talking aimlessly. "Is there something on your mind? Or are we perhaps merely contemplating the sunset? It is quite beautiful, I must admit."

_That voice…_ Rufus suddenly recognized the tone that Reeve was using – the same coaxing tone a trainer would use on a spooked horse or a fear-maddened tiger. Reeve wasn't expecting a response; he was just trying to ease the tension.

Which only made Rufus more suspicious.

He carefully reassessed Reeve, then the box he had tucked under his arm. Nothing out of the ordinary. But wait—

Reeve set the little box – which actually looked more like a dog crate than anything, with its hinged, crosshatched door – on the floor in front and crouched down next to it.

Rufus watched him steadily, but his curiosity was piqued, and as Reeve opened the cage door, he leaned in slightly.

A tiny, furry white head poked out of the crate.

Rufus blinked, half-certain that he was experiencing his first visual hallucination. _What the—_

Two disproportionately large cat paws clambered clumsily out of the crate, almost dwarfing their owner's skull in sheer size. With an almighty grunt of effort, the little creature heaved a pair of shoulders past the threshold of the crate. It rested for a moment there, tiny ribcage heaving with effort, delicate pink nostrils flaring. Gem-like violet eyes instinctively scanned the perimeter, slit pupils contracting as they encountered the dying sunlight.

It then turned its feline face up to Rufus, cocked its head imploringly, and mewed.

_The first recognition_, thought Reeve. The Science Department Director backed off quietly, allowing the two some space. Reeve knew that these first few moments were critical in the crossbreed's future development. The Guard Hound genes in the little creature would imprint on one person and one person only during its entire lifespan, and it was vital that it chose the correct master. The entire Science Department had learned that lesson the hard way. Imprinting confusion had created disastrous results in the lab, and Reeve was not eager to repeat the scenario.

He needn't have worried. The Alexandria cat finally broke eye contact with the Prince after a full minute of intensive staring and squirmed its way out of the cage. Hindquarters freed, the little creature padded out of the crate on all fours and pricked its ears up, scanning the surroundings once more. Although the hybrid had inherited genes from both the Guard Hound and the Isis cat, its cat eyes, general feline body structure, and limber tail took more after the latter donor than the former.

After finishing its visual reconnaissance, the hybrid looked curiously over its shoulder at Reeve, turned around, and casually leapt onto the sofa, crawling over the dunes of blanket over to its new master, adroitly extending and retracting tiny claws to keep its hold on the cloth.

The hybrid then settled on its belly directly in the center of the Prince's lap and mewed again, stretching out its neck and staring worshipfully up at its new and eternal pack leader, feline tail moving back and forth in strange mimicry of a wag.

_First confirmation_. Reeve ticked the second benchmark off of the imprinting list.

"I think she wants you to pet her, Master Prince," Reeve volunteered quietly from the sidelines, approaching once more. The hybrid immediately cocked its head at the interruption but the Prince, for the first time, didn't even spare Reeve a glance. "She's one of the Alexandria cats that the Science Department prototyped recently. A genetic cross between standard-issue Shinra Infantry Guard Hounds and the Isis cats of the SOLDIER Chevalier Department. This particular female is a bit of an oddity, since most of the Alexandria cats we've bred so far have turned out black, but considering your preferences, I didn't think you'd mind…?"

Reeve could have been talking to a doorknob for all the response he received. But apparently the Prince was listening, as he slowly extended a hesitant hand out to rest on the hybrid's arrow-shaped head.

A low, throaty purr thrummed deep in the feline's chest and she butted her head more actively against his palm.

"…What…what's her name?"

The feline's ears pricked up as she heard her master's voice for the first time, as if committing it to memory – and Reeve all but fell over in shock as the Prince spoke for the first time. The scientist risked a closer look at the façade that had, as of yet, held nothing but emotional emptiness, perhaps tinted slightly by a piercingly intelligent condescension.

_Imprinting mutually successful._ Reeve hid his smile. If that expression on the Prince wasn't love, then it was the closest he'd ever get to it.

"We try not to name them before they've imprinted. It tends to confuse them if they receive one name at birth and then another one from their Alpha." Reeve internally cursed his slip of the tongue. _Did I really just say 'Alpha'?_

The Prince didn't seem to notice. He gently ran his thumb from the hybrid's forehead to the hollow of her throat, and the purring intensified. "…Her Alpha, huh."

"Did you have a name in mind?"

The Prince tucked his hands under the hybrid's stomach and lifted her up just enough to let her settle her paws on his chest – the first genuinely human action that Reeve had witnessed from the Prince. The hybrid's hum grew even louder, and she extended her muzzle up to look her pack leader in the eyes.

"…Dark Nation."

Reeve frowned, sure that he had heard incorrectly. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I don't think I…"

"She is the only mistress I shall ever have need for," the Prince explained without once looking up, stroking the tip of the hybrid's muzzle. The hybrid sneezed and jerked in surprise at its own explosive sneeze. "The single, beautiful, faithful sycophant of my dark nation."

Reeve felt an inexplicable twitch of uneasiness as the hybrid ignored the conversation entirely and began nibbling contemplatively on her Alpha's hand. Even though everything was going perfectly according to plan, somehow he felt like the plan had backfired. Like he was missing something important that was sitting right in front of him.

"…Dark Nation it is," Reeve agreed, making a mental note to get dog tags or some other form of identification for the hybrid. _After all, he is her Alpha now. I don't think you can really change a name once you've imprinted, anyway._

"We'll be back later to teach you how to take care of…Dark Nation," Reeve said, still feeling his way around the name. It was strange, but somehow ominous. "Until then, please continue to interact with her. These first few days spent with the Alpha are very important in later life for these types of hybrids."

Reeve picked up the crate and set his course for the door. He was already halfway down the stairs when he was interrupted.

"Director Reeve."

Reeve turned to look up at the Prince. It still startled him to hear that voice, soft but clear, like a silk-sheathed knife. "Yes, Master Prince?"

"…Thank you."

That stopped Reeve in his tracks. His eyes widened in wonder. _Wait…he didn't just…?_

The Prince had already turned his attention back to Dark Nation, who was now busy nuzzling his neck. But Reeve had definitely heard that statement…right? He hadn't just imagined it, had he?

The Prince utterly disregarded him as he left the room, but as Reeve finally breathed his first breath of open air after visiting the White Hall, he was sure that he'd heard correctly because he realized…

"Director Reeve."

The Prince had called him by his title and name for the first time.

And Reeve couldn't help smiling as he walked back to his department.

…

Of all the things Rufus had expected the cat to do, he had not expected it to understand him so deeply and so quickly. The second Reeve had released the hybrid, Rufus had felt its psychic presence reach out to him, curious but sharp with alien intelligence that was just as bright as his own, but in an entirely different way.

_Hello_, the hybrid hailed in that ineffable language of communication between minds, and Rufus had no choice but to dumbfoundedly reciprocate the friendly greeting.

A few seconds later the hybrid had looked up at him with those huge amethyst eyes and, with a twitch of its head, directed at him the query:

_Alpha?_

At first he hadn't understood the statement. It seemed so random, so out of place, that he didn't know how to respond. He'd simply stared down at it, unblinking, unsure of what to say.

It turned out he didn't have to say anything at all. The hybrid seemed to come to an internal decision on its own accord and something clicked in its head as it gazed up at him with sudden adulation.

_Alpha_.

The amount of love and unadulterated faith packed into that single thought was staggering. Rufus had watched dumbly as it, having declared its loyalty, began looking around and taking stock. Once she – for the feline's psychic emanations were most certainly those of a female – was satisfied, she pounced fearlessly onto the sofa and made her way over to sit on his lap.

_Alphaaaa_, she called playfully, mentally demanding some form of tangible recognition from her new pack leader. But how exactly was he supposed to 'recognize' a new 'pack member'? The diminutive hybrid wasn't offering any real ideas, just impressions.

Reeve had suggested petting her. Rufus could hear Reeve's running commentary in the background and mechanically filed the information away, but the moment he made contact with the hybrid, everything seemed irrelevant as their contract was sealed.

It was like spontaneously becoming the center of a tiny solar system. The little creature was utterly devoted from the second she had decided he was _Alpha_. There was nothing else to worry about as long as _Alpha_ was whole, healthy, and near.

And then she started to ask for a name.

Not wanting to break any mental contact with his new satellite, Rufus actually voiced his next question aloud. "…What…what's her name?"

Reeve said that she had no official name, and hybrid concurred, insisting that the Alpha had to choose it for her.

"Her Alpha, huh."

_Contract_, came the hybrid's disjointed explanation. _Alpha…name…contract._

_So naming is a part of the imprinting process. _Rufus was surprised to feel the hybrid concur. _…and apparently you understand human thought._

The reply he got was an unmistakable form of "_duh_."

…_And you have an attitude_, Rufus thought, but his amusement was obvious between the two minds and the feline purred in response.

The hybrid experimented sheathing and unsheathing tiny, hooked claws from her paws as she waited for her Alpha to decide on a name. Even through the fabric separating her paws from his skin, Rufus could still feel the pinpricks of the talons every time they burrowed into the material.

_A hunter's claws_, he mused. _She'll be a predator when she grows up. And from the size of her paws, she'll get pretty big._

A hunter.

A _Huntress_.

_Artemis_, he decided, and they both knew how perfect the name was. _You are Artemis, goddess of the hunt._

_Artemis_, echoed the hybrid solemnly, and their two-member pack was complete.

"Did you have a name in mind?"

Reeve's question was innocent enough, and Rufus almost answered with "Artemis." But something – maybe the naturally exclusive nature of the hybrid or some deep, jealous instinct of his own – wanted to keep her name just between them.

"…Dark Nation," Rufus answered instead. Artemis noted the duplicitous statement but did not comment, accepting her Alpha's decision as her own.

Reeve looked more than slightly confused.

"She is the only mistress I shall ever have need for," Rufus explained, and that much was true. "The single, beautiful, faithful sycophant of my dark nation."

Reeve's perplexity was evident, but both Rufus and Artemis detected a sudden wariness in the scientist, as if he suspected that something was not quite as it seemed.

_Clever fellow._ Rufus hid a smile and shot Reeve a sidelong look. _I knew he was smart enough to be director of Science and R&D._

"Dark Nation it is." Reeve still seemed amiable enough as he wrapped up his monologue and turned to leave.

Artemis bumped her skull into Rufus's hand again as Reeve headed for the door, but this time it seemed insistent, as if she were trying to prompt him to do something. She stared expectantly up at him.

Rufus was puzzled. _What is it?_

Suddenly he understood the fuzzy impression – and was so astonished, he almost smiled. _You never cease to astound, do you?_

Artemis seemed smugly reassured of herself.

Rufus took her suggestion. "…Director Reeve."

The graying researcher stopped and looked up. Rufus caught a definite impression of pleasant surprise. "Yes, Master Prince?"

"Thank you."

Rufus then promptly turned back to Artemis, leaving the poor researcher mired in disbelief and self-doubt. Artemis was very clearly enjoying Reeve's bafflement, and she gave a purr of a chuckle as the director left.

Artemis then refocused all attention on her Alpha, maneuvering along the contours of blanket and body, taking in every detail – height and weight, bearing and posture, average heart rate and eye color – and methodically engraving it into her deepest memory.

And all the while she could hear her Alpha thinking, over and over and over again:

_Artemis_.

* * *

The letters "Stri" peeped out at him enticingly from the shelf. He reached up, tugged it out, and then—

Dammit…"Strider" – someone's been watching too much Lord of the Rings…"Strident" – what the hell, like the gum brand? Whatever…"Stridentor" – is that even a name?…

He skipped over the next few until he saw—

There it was. S-t-r-i-f…

_Strifa_.

His eye twitched.

_Oh my __**God**__._

Vincent Valentine, Turk extraordinaire, restrained himself for the second time that day from smashing his head into the nearest solid object. Or throwing the file folder he grasped in his hand. One of the two.

_This was definitely not in the Turk job description_, Vincent thought tiredly, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

Which wasn't exactly true. Research was considered an indispensable part of a Turk's daily work; after all, only a fool would attempt to plan a mission without information on every possible aspect of the mission. As such, Turks were also trained to be extremely efficient and resourceful information-gatherers – Vincent included.

However, Vincent _usually_ had access to the full electronic catalog of the Shinra files available to him at a few clicks or taps on a keyboard. He _usually_ had the assistance of the entire staff of Shinra archivers to aid him in his search for a file. He _usually_ knew something else about the subject that he could then cross-reference with his main search.

But of course, it happened to be the _one day_ when the outdated electronic Shinra archives had been scheduled for maintenance. Which, of course, urgently required the assistance of the entire staff of Shinra archivers. And _of course_ the subject that Vincent was tasked with researching happened to be one of the few people that he knew nothing about.

Vincent sighed, replaced the file on the shelf, and continued his search.

After another ten minutes of fruitless efforts, a god somewhere smiled down on Vincent, and finally he found the elusive file labeled "STRIFE, CLOUD" mis-shelved between "SANDIFORD, WILLIAM" and "SANDLER, SIMON".

"Odd name," Vincent murmured to himself as he pulled the file and opened it. The file was extremely skinny, containing nothing but an admittance form signed by Lazard, a clean bill of health from the medics' initial evaluations, and a brief, incomplete biography.

"'Mother: Elana Strife nee Vance; Father: James Strife II…'" Vincent mumbled to himself under his breath as he read aloud. "Age 17, attends St. Lucia High School, junior year, blah blah blah…"

Vincent skimmed the entire file twice and then sighed. There was nothing strange reported about Cloud on paper. He was an average high-schooler with average friends, an average bloodline, and slightly higher-than-average grades. By all accounts, Cloud Strife was a perfectly normal teenager.

"He shouldn't have been flagged as a Chevalier at all," Vincent wondered aloud. But _two_ of their Chevalier 1st Class – Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos – had flagged Cloud as a Chevalier and then brought him back to the Shinra Complex. While even 1st Class Chevalier SOLDIER had occasionally been known to incorrectly identify Chevalier, confirmation from _two_ 1st Class reduced the likelihood of an error hundredfold.

"Cloud Strife, you certainly are a mystery," Vincent sighed, slipping the binder under his arm. He'd bring it back once the younger Shinra was done with it.

Vincent walked out of the dusty archives and into the heart of the library, where Shinra technicians and librarians bustled around busily as they revamped the old Shinra system. The Turk artfully sidestepped a few stacks of binders, dodged inattentive men and women carrying huge stacks of paper, and swiftly navigated his way back to the entrance of the library.

Vincent sighed in relief as he shut the door behind him. As much as he appreciated the occasional paper assignment, Vincent never would have made it as a desk-bound Shinra lackey. He could literally feel the stuffy bookworm vibe slide off of him, replaced by the sleek professionalism of a Turk.

"Vincent!" A pleasantly surprised voice called from down the hall. Vincent looked up in time to see one of his fellow Turks walk up to him, a smile on her face. "It's been a while."

Vincent automatically smiled back. His eyes met sand-blonde hair shorn to chin-length for practicality but slightly stylized for simple femininity; pretty, girl-next-door looks, complete with a heart-shaped face; and sky-blue eyes almost a little too friendly for your average Turk.

"Elena," he greeted, genuinely happy to see her. Elena had always been a close friend throughout his career as a Turk, starting from their first day at hand-to-hand combat. During which she had (unintentionally) punched his lights out.

"It's good to see you whole and healthy, Vinnie," Elena chirruped. Her brows furrowed. "I heard you were involved in some kind of accident?"

Vincent gave an involuntary twitch and scrambled for an answer. "Oh – um, that – it was, uh, a little overexaggerated. It was nothing, really…"

He wanted to punch himself in the face.

_Lame. SO LAME._ Vincent could practically feel Tseng breathing down his neck, narrowed onyx eyes disapproving heartily of his poorly devised excuse. _"A Turk is more invisible than a ghost, more dangerous than a cobra, __**more glib than a politician**__…"_

Elena smiled knowingly. "Hey, Vince, relax. I get it. Classified stuff." She shrugged nonchalantly. "We're Turks, dude. It's practically our jobs to keep things under the rug." She punched him lightly in the arm with a black-gloved hand.

Vincent was startled but cheered by the familiar speech and gesture. He'd almost forgotten how close they'd been during those first few months of training – his first real friend within the Turks.

"So are you headed this way?" Elena asked, waving her hand noncommittally.

Vincent thought back briefly to the location of the Prince's hideaway and nodded. "Yep. Paperwork to drop off."

"Great. I'm headed that way, too," Elena said, practically beaming. "We can catch up on the way there."

It was an undeniably enjoyable experience, to simply walk next to a companion who understood every facet of his training and indoctrination, to be able to keep a comfortable space between them without feeling estranged. Vincent wondered if all other SOLDIER and Shinra Infantry members felt as he did at that moment – only for them, they felt the camaraderie every day.

Elena chattered amiably for the both of them, and Vincent took a simple contentment from simply listening to her recent ventures as a newly fledged Turk. She had apparently quit firearms courses entirely – "guns make everything too _easy_" – and had moved into the graceful and deadly realm of martial arts. Ascending the ranks quickly, she was now deployed frequently on covert operations that required "cold" neutralizations – missions carried out without the assistance of a gun.

Which wasn't actually that surprising to Vincent, considering that Elena had graduated from the Turk Academy with five Elite Emblems – including an Emblem in martial arts – and essentially secured her legend as a genius.

"You sound busy," Vincent mused in a brief pause while Elena caught her breath.

Elena seemed caught off-guard by the comment. "I…I never really looked at it that way, but I guess I kind of am." She looked up at him, a playful look on her face. "So, then? What about you? You don't have to spill the beans on everything. Just tell me how it's been, working under the direct supervision of the O Great One, Tseng."

Elena's voice was carefully lighthearted, but Vincent knew that she'd always had an odd attachment to their impassive leader. Vincent also knew that she'd been a little disappointed when Tseng had not chosen her as one of his direct understudies.

He weighed his words carefully. "Well…it's been interesting. He's blunt. But that's what makes him such a good team leader. He knows exactly what to say and when to say it." He broke into a sheepish smile. "It's kind of nerve-wracking, really."

Elena still looked dazzled, even by Vincent's meager description. "Wow."

With a crunch of grass, Vincent then realized that he was already walking across the lawn towards the hidden area where the White Room was hidden. _Oh crap._

"Uh, Elena. Not to be rude, but didn't you say you had somewhere to go?" Vincent ventured, interrupting her reverie.

"Oh – right, I did," Elena said, shaking off her daze and scanning her surroundings. She frowned. "Huh. That's kind of strange."

"What?"

"This…is actually where I'm _supposed_ to be," Elena said, an eyebrow quirked upwards in confusion as she turned to look at Vincent. "Restricted Access Zone 13, Lawn 5, Southeast Corner." She pointed her feet towards the proper direction.

Vincent did some quick calculations.

And was utterly confused.

That was the exact location of the White Room.

Speechless, Vincent stared at her. Who in their right mind would send Elena, bright, cheerful Elena, into a veritable viper's nest like the White Room?

"And…who told you to come here, again?"

"Orders from the top," Elena replied, a tint of awe to her voice. "Tseng, actually."

Vincent blinked. _Wait…Tseng?_

Tseng, in all his wisdom and experience, had not only assigned _another_ Turk to watch over the cynical, borderline-sociopathic, Jedi-mind-trick-freaky ice cube that was Rufus Shinra, but had assigned _Elena_ to the job?

Vincent took a deep breath and reminded himself of every time that Tseng's advice or assistance had pulled him out of a tight spot. _Just trust him. Okay. I can do that._

Vincent refocused on Elena. "Believe it or not, I was assigned to the Wh…to that place, too." If the White Room's biometric security system did approve Elena for entry, then he would fill her in with all the little details of the area.

And, of course, its mind-manipulating occupant.

Before she could reply, a cell phone chirped from Elena's belt. She reached for it and flipped it open through sheer habit, a practice drilled into all Turks' skulls through countless communications lessons and seminars.

Elena's face grew serious as she flipped it shut. "Hey Vince, I'm sorry to leave you hanging here, but it looks like an intruder alarm tripped in one of the Shinra buildings. I'm sure it's nothing, but I still need to go check it out." She rolled her eyes. "You know. Protocol."

Vincent nodded. Protocol, orders, and obedience – those three golden rules practically ran their lives. "Of course."

"We'll talk about this later!" she called while waving her hand in the vague direction of the White Room, already sprinting off to her next destination. "Bye!"

"Bye…" Vincent said feebly, automatically, even as she raced out of hearing distance. He watched her leave and then slowly began the trudge towards the White Room with even heavier feet than usual, his mind reeling.

Tseng had already met – and somehow faced down – the terrifying entity that was Rufus Shinra.

Tseng was a rational human being. (Or so he believably seemed.)

Tseng was not a particularly careless or insane leader. (At least he had proved thus far.)

_So what exactly_, Vincent asked himself, _would possibly possess a man like Tseng to send in a Turk like Elena off to her doom at the hands of a (psychic) psychopath like Rufus Shinra?_

The heavy silence that followed held no answers as Vincent allowed the scrutiny of the White Room's security system. The huge metal doors slid open silently as they accepted his identification and greeted him with a neutral computer-generated voice.

"Welcome, Turk Vincent Valentine."

_That's new_, he thought, cautiously stepping into the bleach-white entrance hall. It somehow seemed to take even less time than usual to cross the stretch of sanitized tile and arrive at the main residence quarters.

With a troubled heart but a carefully composed countenance, Vincent gritted his teeth, opened the sealed double doors, and walked back into the lion's den.

* * *

A/N: I hope you enjoyed it, dear readers. No evil cliffies this time :) And I actually managed to get in most of the characters this chapter! Hooray! :)

Comments, questions, and suggestions are always welcomed (as per usual). Please keep in touch with me - it really does wonders for morale.

From the desk of the Black Cat,  
Kitty XIII


End file.
